The packet-oriented transport approach used in the advanced digital television (ADTV) system for terrestrial HDTV broadcast is described. ADTV achieves robust HDTV delivery on terrestrial simulcast channels via MPEG video compression, prioritization of MPEG data, and 'cell-relay' type packet transport in conjunction with a two-tier physical transmission scheme. General design issues relevant to the development of the proposed transport protocol are discussed. ADTV's prioritization algorithm for partitioning MPEG-encoded video into high-priority (HP) and standard-priority (SP) bit streams is outlined. The data transport format supporting these prioritized compressed video bit streams is described. The three principal sublayers of the ADTV transport protocol are discussed in terms of specific functions, impact of system performance, and hardware implementation factors. A proof-of-concept simulation model that incorporates transport encoding and decoding functionality is outlined, and performance evaluation results are given for illustrative transmission scenarios.>

A comparative evaluation of dynamic time-division multiple access (TDMA) and spread-spectrum packet code-division multiple access (CDMA) approaches to multiple access in an integrated voice/data personal communications network (PCN) environment are presented. After briefly outlining a cellular packet-switching architecture for voice/data PCN systems, dynamic TDMA and packet CDMA protocols appropriate for such traffic scenarios are described. Simulation-based network models which have been developed for performance evaluation of these competing access techniques are then outlined. These models are exercised with example integrated voice/data traffic models to obtain comparative system performance measures such as channel utilization, voice blocking probability, and data delay. Operating points based on typical performance constraints such as voice blocking probability 0.01 (for TDMA), voice packet loss rate 10/sup -3/ (for CDMA), and data delay 250 ms are obtained, and results are presented.>

An analysis of unslotted random-access direct-sequence spread-spectrum multiple-access (DS/SSMA) channels with block forward error correction (FEC) coding is presented. Extending a methodology that was introduced in an earlier paper on unslotted packet code-division multiple access (CDMA) without coding, a procedure for calculating the error probability of an L-bit packet in the variable message length, FEC-coded, DS/SSMA environment is described. This procedure is then used in conjunction with appropriate flow equilibrium traffic models to compute channel throughput. Using BCH block coding as an example, the analytical model is exercised to obtain throughput versus channel traffic curves over a range of code rates, leading to an assessment of maximum achievable throughput and the associated optimum FEC code rate. The results show that the use of block FEC coding provides a significant improvement in the bandwidth-normalized channel throughput (utilization), approaching values competitive with those for comparable narrowband ALOHA channels.>

Spread spectrum CDMA based cellular systems are currently under consideration for a range of personal communication network (PCN) applications. While CDMA has been shown to offer significant capacity advantage over narrowband TDMA alternatives, these gains are very sensitive to the propagation loss coefficient gamma . Most analytical studies for CDMA system capacity are based on an assumption of propagation loss coefficient gamma =4, consistent with large cell sizes associated with present day cellular radio. However, in microcellular (i.e., cell sizes with radius approximately 100's of meters) environments, the path loss coefficient can vary in the range of 2 to 4. In addition, attenuation measurements using low antenna heights for microcells have indicated that the path loss coefficient may not be a constant, increasing with distance between the base station and the subscriber terminal. A distance-dependent model for the propagation loss coefficient gamma is considered and used to compute the capacity of a cellular packet CDMA system operating in an integrated voice/data PCN environment. System-level performance measures such as channel utilization, voice packet loss probability and data delay are derived from a detailed channel event based simulation model, and compared for alternative scenarios with constant gamma and distance dependent gamma .>

An investigation of statistically based approaches to the design of buffer control algorithms for interfacing a compressed digital video source to a constant rate channel is presented. As a first step to a quantitative methodology for the design and evaluation of adaptive buffer control algorithms, a detailed statistical characterization of the various encoding modes of an example broadcast quality intra/interframe differential-pulse-code-modulation (DPCM) algorithm is obtained from extensive simulation. The statistics presented include simple measures such as the overall encoded rate distributions for each encoding mode and more detailed intermode and intramode statistics. Two specific adaptive mode control algorithms are proposed. Using simulation over a large sea of representative images, the performance of the proposed statistically based algorithms is compared to that of a conventional buffer-level-based control heuristic which does not require source characterization.>

A method is described for the exact calculation of message length transition probabilities in asynchronous selective reject (SREJ) ALOHA channels with Poisson message arrivals. The formulas derived are used for exact calculation of the throughput characteristics of example SREJ-ALOHA channels which were previously analyzed using bounds or approximate methods.>

An analytical investigation is presented of generalized retransmission backoff policies for slotted-ALOHA random-access channels. Backoff techniques, of which the well-known exponential backoff is a special case, are based on adaptation of average retransmission delay as a function of the number of collisions experienced by each message accessing the contention channel. An analytical model applicable to slotted-ALOHA channels using general backoff functions has been developed and used to assess the performance advantages offered by either exponential backoff or alternative policies motivated by heuristic considerations. Numerical results for a sample satellite channel scenario are presented, demonstrating that the use of appropriate backoff policies can result in significant improvements in stable throughput-delay characteristics relative to those of nonadaptive systems.>

The problem of designing shared access packet-transport-based transmission systems for compressed video signals is studied. The feasibility of using conventional link-level and transport-level protocol services to transmit compressed video is examined by focusing on two practically important scenarios for compressed video transmission: (1) multipoint-to-multipoint video transmission using a 200 Mb/s implicit token passing (ITP) fiber-optic local area network (LAN); and (2) point-to-multipoint broadcast video distribution using a 90 Mb/s packet time-division multiplexing (packet-TDM) direct-broadcast satellite channel. To evaluate the performance of such shared-access broadband packet video systems accurate simulation models were developed that were driven by realistic 'broadcast quality' compressed video sources for the ITP-LAN and packet-TDM systems. The models were used to determine design tradeoffs between channel throughput, video quality (measured by clipping probability), and the transport-level and media-access-level protocol features and parameters implemented in the packet video network interface unit.>

Simulation models are described for the performance evaluation of satellite multiple-access protocols used in VSAT (very small aperture terminal) data networks. Since the design of VSAT-based wide-area networks for interactive applications is critically dependent on the delay-throughput characteristics of the channel access protocol used, detailed simulation models have been developed to augment analytical performance-evaluation methods. Simulation models for several candidate VSAT access protocols, including random-access techniques such as Aloha, selective reject Aloha and slotted Aloha and demand-assignment multiple-access based techniques, are discussed in terms of traffic-source models, access algorithms, and performance-evaluation criteria. Numerical results for a realistic interactive data VSAT network environment are presented.>

No abstract available.