Performance analysis of NAK-based ARQ in correlated-error channels

This paper studies the performance of negative acknowledgement- (NAK-) based ARQ which is a conventional selective repeat ARQ except sending an acknowledgment message only when a transmission error occurs. A Markovian error channel model is considered for both forward and feedback channels. The throughput and mean extra delay in terms of RTD (round trip delay) are obtained. The result shows that the throughput of NAK-based ARQ in a noisy feedback environment is as good as that of a selective repeat ARQ scheme with a perfect feedback channel.