On the use of renewal theory in the analysis of ARQ protocols

Michele Zorzi, Member, IEEE, and Ramesh R. Rao, Senior Member, IEEE Abstract— In this paper, an ARQ Go-Back-N protocol with unreliable feedback and time-out mechanism is studied, using renewal theory. Transmissions on both the forward and the reverse channels are assumed to experience Markovian errors. The exact throughput of the protocol is evaluated, and simulation results, that confirm the analysis, are presented. A detailed comparison of the proposed method and the commonly used transfer function method reveals that the proposed approach is simple and potentially more powerful.