A tight asymptotic bound on the size of constant-weight conflict-avoiding codes (Q2638410)

Let \(P_w^n\) be the set of subsets of size \(w\) in \(Z_n\). Given \( A \subseteq Z_n\), \(d^*(A) = \{ x-y \;| \;x,y \in A, x \neq y \}\). A conflict avoiding code of length \(n\) and weight \(w\) is a collection of sets in \(P_w^n\) such that \(d^*(A) \cap d^*(B) = \emptyset.\) Conflict-avoiding codes are used to guarantee that each transmitting user can send at least one packet successfully in the worst case within a fixed period of time. An upper bound on the size of the conflict avoiding code was known only for Hamming weight 3,4 and 5. The authors extend this to all Hamming weights and exhibit sequences of codes which meet this bound asymptotically for all Hamming weights.