Evaluation of Macro Diversity Gain in Long Range ALOHA Networks

International audienceMacro reception diversity is a capability allowing a packet to be received by several base stations. In this letter, we propose a simple but accurate analytical model to estimate the macro diversity gain in pure and slotted ALOHA wireless networks. The proposed model takes into account Rayleigh fad- ing, shadowing and capture effect. We obtain simple closed-form formulas for the network packet loss rate. We find that systems with macro reception diversity can benefit from shadowing. With path loss exponent 4, packet loss rate constraint 10% and 8 dB shadowing, the capacity of pure ALOHA with macro diversity is at least 2 times as much as that in systems in which a device transmits only to the best base station