Multiple‐Access Schemes

Abstract

Multiple access schemes are natural not only in communication systems but also in many other systems such as computer systems, storage facilities, or servers of any kind, where resources are shared by a number of nodes. In this article we address mainly shared communication channels. The goal of this article is to survey typical examples of multiple access schemes. These examples include TDMA, FDMA, Aloha, polling, and tree‐based schemes. The allocated space for the topic of multiple access schemes in the encyclopedia (which is yet another shared resource) is just too tiny to include all the ingenious multiple access schemes that have been designed by researchers over the years.