Unequal Access Latency Random Access Protocol for Massive Machine-Type Communications

In this paper, we propose a novel multi-slot pilot allocation (MSPA) random access scheme with unequal access latency (UAL) protection for user equipments (UEs) in massive machine-type communications (mMTC). In order to provide UAL protection, we allocate the UEs into different groups according to their UAL requirements, where the higher priority groups can access in a stringent latency under the required access failure probability (AFP) requirement; while the lower priority groups are able to access with predetermined AFP by allocated multi-slot. Specifically, our generalized UAL-MSPA random access protocol is incorporated into two considered UAL protection schemes, i.e., the independent UAL scheme and the expanded UAL scheme. We derive the closed-form expressions to the AFP and the sum throughout for the investigated UAL schemes. By utilizing these analytical results, a joint parameter optimization problem is formulated for obtaining the minimum access latency under the desired AFP requirements. Detailed simulations validate our analytical results and confirm the efficiency of our proposed UAL schemes. Finally, the UAL-MSPA random access protocol with joint optimized parameters outperforms the existing protocols in terms of achieving high sum throughput and shortening the access latency of low priority group.