Performance evaluation of a joint CDMA/NC-PRMA protocol for wireless multimedia communications

A joint code division multiple access and noncollision packet reservation multiple access (CDMA/NC-PRMA) technique is proposed and investigated as an uplink protocol for the third-generation (3G) mobile systems. Being the underlying time division multiple access (TDMA) architecture of the CDMA transmissions, NC-PRMA enables the base station (BS) to have a centralized control over the slot allocation policy. In order to reduce the multiple access interference (MAI) variation in a CDMA transmission, two different slot assignment schemes, referred to as load-balancing (LB) and power-grouping (PG) schemes, are proposed and evaluated. Simulation results show that considerable improvement can be achieved over the joint CDMA/PRMA scheme, in which the MAI variation is reduced by way of a dynamic permission probability for contending terminals. Especially when an imperfect power control mechanism is considered, the proposed PG assignment scheme achieves significant performance advantages.