Influence of the Spatial Distribution of the Transmitters on the Performance of Multi-Packet Reception Wireless Systems

In Multi-Packet Reception (MPR) systems multiple packets transmitted at the same time can be decoded at the receiver. Due to the path loss effect, in MPR communication systems the channel is more likely to be captured by the nearby transmitters, which can lead to unfairness on medium access. In this paper, we study the impact of the spatial distribution of the nodes on the performance of MPR based PHY-layer systems. The performance of the MPR communication system is addressed by deriving the spatial capture probability and the average number of captured packets when n simultaneous transmissions occur, taking into account the radio propagation effects and the capture capabilities of the communication scheme. Finally, the paper analyses the spatial capture probability for different nodes’ locations, network sizes, and nodes’ spatial distributions. A comparison between simulated and numerical results confirms the accuracy of the proposed modeling approach and shows how can the network nodes be orchestrated in terms of spatial access to improve the MPR-based PHY-layer performance.