Author Description

Computer networks dramatically impact the Air Force mission and day-to-day operations. As network speeds increase to the gigabit range and beyond, better means for arbitrating network access becomes critical for increasing performance. Conventional approaches to increase Ethernet performance include using higher bandwidth media such as fiber optic cabling. However, there is a limit to the increase of effectiveness these measures provide. Spread spectrum multiple access techniques allow multiple users to simultaneously access the shared network resources through the use of special coding. These techniques have been principally employed in wireless networking environments to compensate for the scarce bandwidth inherent in the systems. Since cabling infrastructure upgrades may not be a viable option for increasing network performance, we apply spread spectrum techniques to a wired local area network to increase throughput and lower delay.