Unified Error Analysis for Synchronous and Asynchronous Two-User Random Access

Abstract: We consider a two-user random access system in which each user independently selects a coding scheme from a finite set for every message, without sharing these choices with the other user or with the receiver. The receiver aims to decode only user 1 message but may also decode user 2 message when beneficial. In the synchronous setting, the receiver employs two parallel sub-decoders: one dedicated to decoding user 1 message and another that jointly decodes both users messages. Their outputs are synthesized to produce the final decoding or collision decision. For the asynchronous setting, we examine a time interval containing $L$ consecutive codewords from each user. The receiver deploys $2^{2L}$ parallel sub-decoders, each responsible for decoding a subset of the message-code index pairs. In both synchronous and asynchronous cases, every sub-decoder partitions the coding space into three disjoint regions: operation, margin, and collision, and outputs either decoded messages or a collision report according to the region in which the estimated code index vector lies. Error events are defined for each sub-decoder and for the overall receiver whenever the expected output is not produced. We derive achievable upper bounds on the generalized error performance, defined as a weighted sum of incorrect-decoding, collision, and miss-detection probabilities, for both synchronous and asynchronous scenarios.