Packet switching in multiple radio channels: Analysis and stability of a random access system

Abstract

Packet switching has found widespread application in computer communications. Packet radio is the application of packet switching techniques to radio channels. The paper considers packet switching in multiple radio channels with random access. First, a markovian model and an approximate model called “fluid approximation” are formulated and numerical results are presented. Then, the paper demonstrates and analyses an important aspect of the dynamic characteristics of packet radio, namely, the stability considerations. In addition, the stability region is determined.

To the author's knowledge previous studies have been limited to analysis of single radio channels. Besides, the considerations in previous papers have been concentrated only on demonstration if a system is stable or not, while in this paper additionally the stability region is calculated.