Performance of a type-II hybrid ARQ protocol in slotted DS-SSMA packet radio systems

In this paper, the application of a type-II hybrid ARQ protocol in a slotted direct-sequence spread-spectrum multiple-access (DS-SSMA) packet radio system is investigated. Both the static performance and the dynamic performance of such a system are analyzed. In the physical layer, packet error and packet success probabilities are computed using the improved Gaussian approximation technique, which accounts for the bit-to-bit error dependence within a packet. In the data-link layer, two-dimensional Markov chains are employed to model the system dynamic. Based on this model, the performance of the type-II hybrid ARQ protocol is upper and lower bounded by considering, respectively, a superior scheme and an inferior scheme. Steady state throughput and delay performances of the two bounding schemes are obtained. Moreover, it is shown that for each fixed input load, there is an optimal retransmission probability under the finite user population assumption. Bounds on this optimal retransmission probability are also given.