Dual-service wireless LAN antenna-remoting system using uncooled directly modulated D'FB laser diodes

We report a fibre-optic wireless distribution system, which allows antenna-remoting of a dual-service IEEE 802.11b/g WLAN operating at 2.4GHz up to 700m over low-bandwidth 62.5/125μm MMF using highly linear uncooled directly modulated laser diodes. © 2004 Optical Society of America.

Tri-Band HIS Backed Spiral Antenna for Wireless LAN Applications

This study reports the performance of an Archimedean spiral antenna, which exhibits unidirectional circularly polarized radiation patterns with a peak gain >8 dBic in the lower (2.4–2.485 GHz) and upper (5.15–5.35 and 5.725–5.875 GHz) Wireless local area network frequency bands. The required backlobe suppression and impedance match are obtained by placing a multiresonant high impedance surface (HIS) in close proximity to the radiating aperture. Simulated and measured radiation patterns are shown at the center frequency of all three channels and a comparison of the key performance metrics is made with free space and metal backed antenna arrangements to demonstrate the enhancements which are attributed to the HIS reflector.

Wireless LAN : a grande questão ; 802.11a ou 802.11b?

Este trabalho apresenta, inicialmente, uma análise comparativa detalhada dos dois padrões, IEEE 802.11a e IEEE802.11b, que foram apresentados recentemente pelo IEEE na área de redes sem fio (wireless). São apresentadas as principais diferenças tecnológicas dos dois padrões, no que se refere, principalmente, à arquitetura, funções de controle, segurança, desempenho e custo de implementação destas duas tecnologias de redes wireless. São avaliados também os aspectos de interoperabilidade, quando estas redes são integradas em redes corporativas fixas, que são baseadas, principalmente, em redes Ethernet, tradicionalmente usadas em redes corporativas. São considerados também, aspectos de custo e flexibilidade de aplicação das duas tecnologias e mostram-se como estas diferenças devem ser levadas em conta em aplicações típicas de um ambiente corporativo. Finalmente, apresenta-se também, como estudo de caso, uma análise focalizada principalmente na integração da tecnologia wireless em aplicações típicas de uma grande empresa local. Consideram-se as vantagens e desvantagens de ambas as tecnologias, como solução para algumas aplicações típicas encontradas nesta empresa, e justifica-se a escolha da solução que foi adotada. Conclui-se com algumas projeções quanto ao futuro da tecnologia wireless no ambiente público e corporativo.

A low-profile dual-band antenna for a wireless LAN access point

The design of dual-band 2.45/5.2 GHz antenna for an acces point of a Wireless Local Area Network (LAN) is presented. The proposed antenna is formed by a Radial Line Slot Array (RLSA) operating at 2.4 GHz and a Microstrip patch working at 5.2 GHz, both featuring circular polarization. The design of this antenna system is accomplished using commercially available Finite Element software. High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) of Ansoft and an in-house developed iteration procedure. The performance of the designed antenna is assessed in terms of return loss (RL), radiation pattern and polarization purity in the two frequency bands.

Modeling link adaptation algorithm for IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN networks

Link adaptation is a critical component of IEEE 802.11 systems. In this paper, we analytically model a retransmission based Auto Rate Fallback (ARF) link adaptation algorithm. Both packet collisions and packet corruptions are modeled with the algorithm. The models can provide insights into the dynamics of the link adaptation algorithms and configuration of algorithms parameters. It is also observed that when the competing number of stations is high, packet collisions can largely affected the performance of ARF and make ARF operate with the lowest date rate, even when no packet corruption occur. This is in contrast to the existing assumption that packet collision will not affect the correct operation of ARF and can be ignored in the evaluation of ARF. The work presented in this paper can provide guidelines on configuring the link adaptation algorithms and designing new link adaptation algorithms for future high speed 802.11 systems. © 2006 IEEE.

Securing IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs

As the acceptance and popularity of wireless networking technologies has proliferated, the security of the IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network (WLAN) has advanced in leaps and bounds. From tenuous beginnings, where the only safe way to deploy a WLAN was to assume it was hostile and employ higherlayer information security controls, to the current state of the art, all manner of improvements have been conceived and many implemented. This work investigates some of the remaining issues surrounding IEEE 802.11 WLAN operation. While the inherent issues in WLAN deployments and the problems of the original Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) provisions are well known and widely documented, there still exist a number of unresolved security issues. These include the security of management and control frames and the data link layer protocols themselves. This research introduces a novel proposal to enhance security at the link layer of IEEE 802.11 WLANs and then conducts detailed theoretical and empirical investigation and analysis of the eects of such proposals. This thesis �rst de�nes the state of the art in WLAN technology and deployment, including an overview of the current and emerging standards, the various threats, numerous vulnerabilities and current exploits. The IEEE 802.11i MAC security enhancements are discussed in detail, along with the likely outcomes of the IEEE 802.11 Task Group W1, looking into protected management frames. The problems of the remaining unprotected management frames, the unprotected control frames and the unprotected link layer headers are reviewed and a solution is hypothesised, to encrypt the entire MAC Protocol Data Unit (MPDU), including the MAC headers, not just the MAC Service Data Unit (MSDU) commonly performed by existing protocols. The proposal is not just to encrypt a copy of the headers while still using cleartext addresses to deliver the frame, as used by some existing protocols to support the integrity and authenticity of the headers, but to pass the entire MPDU only as ciphertext to also support the con�dentiality of the frame header information. This necessitates the decryption of every received frame using every available key before a station can determine if it is the intended recipient. As such, this raises serious concerns as to the viability of any such proposal due to the likely impact on throughput and scalability. The bulk of the research investigates the impacts of such proposals on the current WLAN protocols. Some possible variations to the proposal are also provided to enhance both utility and speed. The viability this proposal with respect to the eect on network throughput is then tested using a well known and respected network simulation tool, along with a number of analysis tools developed speci�cally for the data generated here. The simulator's operation is �rst validated against recognised test outputs, before a comprehensive set of control data is established, and then the proposal is tested and and compared against the controls. This detailed analysis of the various simulations should be of bene�t to other researchers who need to validate simulation results. The analysis of these tests indicate areas of immediate improvement and so the protocols are adjusted and a further series of experiments conducted. These �nal results are again analysed in detail and �nal appraisals provided.

A MIMO-OFDM testbed for wireless local area networks

We describe the design steps and final implementation of a MIMO OFDM prototype platform developed to enhance the performance of wireless LAN standards such as HiperLAN/2 and 802.11, using multiple transmit and multiple receive antennas. We first describe the channel measurement campaign used to characterize the indoor operational propagation environment, and analyze the influence of the channel on code design through a ray-tracing channel simulator. We also comment on some antenna and RF issues which are of importance for the final realization of the testbed. Multiple coding, decoding, and channel estimation strategies are discussed and their respective performance-complexity trade-offs are evaluated over the realistic channel obtained from the propagation studies. Finally,we present the design methodology, including cross-validation of the Matlab, C++, and VHDL components, and the final demonstrator architecture. We highlight the increased measured performance of the MIMO testbed over the single-antenna system. £.