Improving Age of Information in Random Access Channels

We study Age of Information (AoI) in a random access channel where a number of devices try to send status updates over a common medium. Assuming a time-slotted scenario where multiple transmissions result in collision, we propose a threshold-based lazy version of Slotted ALOHA and derive the time average AoI achieved by this policy. We demonstrate that the average AoI performance of the lazy policy is significantly better than Slotted ALOHA, and close to the ideal round robin benchmark.