A Unified Framework of the Performance Evaluation of Optical Time-Wavelength Code-Division Multiple-Access Systems

In this paper, we provide an analysis to the performance of optical time-wavelength code-division multiple-access (OTW-CDMA) network when the system is working above the nominal transmission rate limit imposed by the passive encoding-decoding operation. We address the problem of overlapping in such a system and how it can directly affect the bit error rate (BER). A unified mathematical framework is presented under the assumption of one coincidence sequences with non-repeating wavelengths. A closed form expression of the multiple access interference limited BER is provided as a function of different system parameters. Results show that the performance of OTW-CDMA system may be critically affected when working above the nominal limit; an event that may happen when the network operates at high transmission rate. In addition, the impact of the derived error probability on the performance of two newly proposed MAC protocols, the S-ALOHA and the R3T, is also investigated. It is shown that for low transmission rates, the SALOHA is better than the R3T; while the R3T is better at very high transmission rates. However, in general it is postulated that the R3T protocol suffers a higher delay mainly because of the presence of additional modes.