Method for terminal operation in a multiple access slotted radio communication system and terminal for use in a multiple access slotted radio communication system

摘要

A multiple access slotted wireless communication system comprising a plurality of terminals and a multi-access receiver is described. The terminals and multi-access receiver communicate using a frame comprising a plurality of slots, and is configured to successfully decode up to m transmissions in each slot of a frame from terminals in the field of view. Each terminal has an active state for transmitting, and an inactive state during which the terminal is prevented from transmitting and is configured such that after receiving acknowledgement of a successful transmission by the terminal, the terminal enters the inactive state for at least a transmission delay time. This may be the remaining time that the terminal is in the field of view of the multi-access receiver. This may be achieved by the terminal using a probability of transmission to determine whether or not to transmit in the next frame, and the inactive state may correspond to setting the probability to zero. Further the probability may be varied to control the likelihood of the terminal transmitting more than once whilst in the field of view. The terminal may also be configured to select the slot in a frame, and this may be based upon information such as which slots were acknowledged. The receiver may also use compression to transmit acknowledgement messages, and the system may optimizing one or more network parameters and these may be used by a terminal to decide on whether to transmit in a frame, and if so, which slot to transmit in.