Location techniques that satisfy the requirements of advanced Location-Based Services (LBS) in environments where GPS fails are needed, therefore accurate indoor positioning is becoming increasingly important. This PhD Thesis is devoted to the research on location of mobile devices employing WLAN (IEEE 802.11). The use of this kind of wireless networks infrastructures for positioning enables a powerful synergy between communications and location and allows solutions with good performances at moderated costs. However the adopted WLAN location methods suffer from important limitations that prevents from applying them to some fields that need more flexible and robust solutions. The main objective of this PhD is exploring precise WLAN location methods that allow overcoming these limitations. The researched methods here are based on measuring the Time Of Arrival (TOA), which is the time that takes the signal propagating from the transmitter to the receiver. TOA-based location works in two stages: ranging and positioning. The ranging consists of estimating the distances between the targeted terminal and several WLAN access points, each distance obtained measuring the TOA and then multiplying it by the speed of the WLAN signal. After that, the positioning takes as inputs the estimated distances and the known coordinates of the involved access points and calculates the position of the terminal by means of a trilateration or tracking algorithm. The key problem is that the characteristics of the IEEE 802.11 protocols difficult to perform accurate TOA measurements. The main challenge that faces the research work reported here is demonstrating the feasibility of achieving this while keeping the modifications over standard WLAN consumer equipment at minimum. The objective of this work can be understood as exploring the current limits of TOA-based methods over WLAN, making contributions that form a complete TOA-based location method that goes a step forward with respect to the other existing proposals. First, research on TOA-based ranging -the key component of TOA-based location methods- is reported. The general adopted approach consists of performing Round Trip Time (RTT) measurements employing IEEE 802.11 MAC frames, taking the maximum advantage of the combination of IEEE 802.11 protocol and WLAN consumer devices mechanisms. After that, the performed research on trilateration/tracking -the second stage of TOA-based location methods- is explained. Finally some performed studies about the achieved location method are presented. Lloc i data Signatura / Actualment existeix la necessitat de disposar de tècniques de localització que satisfacin els requeriments de serveis avançats basats en localització en entorns on GPS no està disponible, de manera que el posicionament precís en interiors d’edificis és cada vegada més important. Aquesta tesi doctoral està dedicada a la investigació sobre la localització de dispositius mòbils que utilitzen WLAN (IEEE 802.11). L'ús d'aquest tipus de xarxes sense fils per al posicionament permet una profitosa sinèrgia entre les comunicacions i la localització i permet solucions amb un bon rendiment a un cost moderat. No obstant això, els mètodes basats WLAN proposats fins el moment pateixen de limitacions importants que impedeix la seva aplicació a alguns camps que requereixen solucions més flexibles i robustes. L'objectiu principal d'aquesta tesi és explorar mètodes de localització precisa WLAN que permetin superar aquestes limitacions. Els mètodes que s’han investigat durant la tesi es basen en la mesura del time of arrival (TOA), que és el temps que tarda el senyal en propagar-se des del transmissor fins al receptor. En les tècniques de posicionament basades en TOA s’hi poden diferenciar dues fases: ranging i posicionament. El ranging consisteix en l’estimació de distàncies entre el terminal a localitzar i diversos punts d'accés WLAN; cada estimació de distància s’obté mesurant el TOA i multiplicant-lo després per la velocitat de propagació del senyal IEEE 802.11. Un cop fet això, el posicionament pren com a inputs les distàncies estimades per a, conegudes les coordenades dels punts d'accés involucrats, calcular la posició del terminal per mitjà d'un algoritme de tracking o trilateració. El problema clau és que les característiques dels protocols IEEE 802.11 a dia d’avui fan difícil la realització de mesures precises de TOA d’una manera senzilla. El principal repte que afronta el present treball de recerca és demostrar la viabilitat d’això darrer, minimitzant en la major mesura possible les modificacions sobre els equips WLAN comercials. L'objectiu d'aquest treball pot ser entesa com l'exploració dels límits actuals dels mètodes de posicionament basats en TOA sobre WLAN, realitzant contribucions que conformen un mètode complet de localització basat en TOA que pretén anar un pas endavant respecte a les propostes existents. En primer lloc, la investigació sobre ranging basat en TOA -el component clau dels mètode de localització TOA- és explicada en detall. El mètode general adoptat per a calcular el TOA consisteix en la mesura del temps d'anada i tornada del senyal, round trip time (RTT), utilitzant trames MAC IEEE 802.11 per tal de treure el màxim profit de la combinació del protocol IEEE 802.11 i els mecanismes dels dispositius WLAN comercials. Després d'això, es detalla la investigació realitzada sobre trilateració i tracking, la segona etapa dels mètodes de localització basats en TOA. Finalment es descriuen alguns estudis realitzats sobre les prestacions, possibles millores i encaix en futurs estàndars del mètode de localització explorat.

The need for higher data rates in WLANs boosts drastically because tremendous consumer interest in emerging multimedia applications, such as HDTV, has been increased. Currently, the IEEE 802.11a/b/g WLANs provide a limited data rate for the current user application requirements. In order to overcome substantial limitations of the existing WLANs, the next generation of WLANs, IEEE 802.11n, is in the course of development and expected to support higher throughput, larger coverage area and better QoS. The high performance IEEE 802.11n WLAN can improve data rate significantly by using smart antenna systems in the physical layer to take advantage of multi-path fading of wireless channels. In this thesis, an analytical model is developed to study the MAC performance and the underlying smart antenna technologies used in multi-path fading channels. Multiple antennas employed in the AP arise two popular approaches to provide a significant performance improvement, diversity and multiplexing. Considering the diversity gain of multiple antennas at the AP in which the AP with multiple antennas serves one user at a time, the capacity and throughput can be obtained. In addition, the AP is possible to serve multiple users in the downlink, by exploiting the multiplexing gain of the wireless channel. We investigate the maximum network throughput when the traffic intensity of the AP approaches to one. Unlike most of previous research which focus on either the physical or the MAC layer performance, our analytical model jointly considers the MAC protocol and the smart antenna technology.

This thesis describes the simulation of the proposed IEEE 802.11p Physical layer (PHY). A MATLAB simulation is carried out in order to analyze baseband processing of the transceiver. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is applied in this project according to the IEEE 802.11p standard, which allows transmission data rates from 3 up to 27Mbps. Distinct modulation schemes, Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK), Quadrate Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) and Quadrature Amplitude modulation (QAM), are used according to differing data rates. These schemes are combined with time interleaving and a convolutional error correcting code. A guard interval is inserted at the beginning of the transmitted symbol in order to reduce the effect of Intersymbol Interference (ISI). The Viterbi decoder is used for decoding the received signal. Simulation results illustrate the Bit Error Rate (BER), Packet Error Rate (PER) for different channels. Different channel implementations are used for the simulations. In addition a ray-tracing based software tool for modelling time variant vehicular channels is integrated into SIMULINK. BER versus Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) statistics are as the basic reference for the physical layer of the IEEE 802.11p standard for all vehicular wireless network simulations.

No description available.

The wide spread use of IEEE Wireless LAN 802.11 in battery operated mobile devices introduced the need of power consumption optimization while meeting Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements of applications connected through the wireless network. The IEEE 802.11 standard specifies a baseline power saving mechanism, hereafter referred to as standard Power Save Mode (PSM), and the IEEE 802.11e standard specifies the Automatic Power Save Delivery (APSD) enhancement which provides support for real-time applications with QoS requirements. The latest amendment to the WLAN 802.11 standard is the IEEE 802.11n standard which enables the use of much higher data rates by including enhancements in the Physical and MAC Layer. In this thesis, different 802.11n MAC power saving and QoS optimization possibilities are analyzed comparing against existing power saving mechanisms. Initially, the performance of the existing power saving mechanisms PSM and Unscheduled-APSD (UAPSD) are evaluated using the 802.11n process model in the OPNET simulator and the impact of frame aggregation feature introduced in the MAC layer of 802.11n was analyzed on these power saving mechanisms. From the performance analysis it can be concluded that the frame aggregation will be efficient under congested network conditions. When the network congestion level increases, the signaling load in UAPSD saturates the channel capacity and hence results in poor performance compared to PSM. Since PSM cannot guarantee the minimum QoS requirements for delay sensitive applications, a better mechanism for performance enhancement of UAPSD under dynamic network conditions is proposed. The functionality and performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated under different network conditions and using different contention settings. From the performance results it can be concluded that, by using the proposed algorithm the congestion level in the network is reduced dynamically thereby providing a better power saving and QoS by utilizing the frame aggregation feature efficiently.

The focus of this thesis work is to evaluate the RSS (Received Signal Strength) Performance of the University of Gävle (HiG) based on IEEE 802.11 standards both indoor and outdoor. Authors investigated the issues of deploying access points for wireless local area networks in the library-2nd floor, building 99-4th floor and outdoor university campus. By using the program VisiWave Site Survey, Global Position System (GPS) and RSS sensor to analysis the received signal strength, throughput and radio map. The influence of the building material and distance for the signal strength and the throughput are done by investigating indoor environment. The results of investigation suggest that most parts of library-2nd floor and building 99-4th floor possess at least a good RSS performance. However, minority parts of these places have a poor RSS performance, and the new resolution of Access Points’ (AP) deployment for these poor-RSS-performance parts is provided. For the outdoor campus part, the RSS in the area which near the walls of building is satisfactory (Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) between -79.8 dBm and -57 dBm), however in the centre of outdoor campus the RSS is poor. Thus, the evaluation of APs deployment in HiG is achieved.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) over WLAN is one of the most important technologies in today’s world of communication. VoIP is simply a way to make phone calls through the internet because of the convergence of voice and data networks enables new applications and cost reductions. Voice over WLAN phones are already being offered to enterprises by leading vendors. Most of internet services or applications require centralized network to communicate, but with Ad-hoc networks there is no such requirement at all. In this report we have established a VoIP session by forming a network between Android mobile devices without using an Access point. Energy consumption is a major problem for VoIP over wireless LAN applications while using them in hand held devices. We investigated the energy consumption characteristics of our Evaluation kit during VoIP session. We further studied about new technology: “Wi-Fi Direct” which allows Wi-Fi equipped devices to share data without using wireless access points.

There are several standards for wireless communication. People that are involved in computers and networking recognize names like Bluetooth, HiperLAN and IEEE 802.11. A fundamental part of an IEEE 802.11 node is the Medium Access Controller. It establishes and controls communication with other nodes, using a physical layer unit. This is the work that was carried out as a master thesis project at Ericsson Microelectronics. The main goal was to design, implement and evaluate a hardware interface between the MAC and the physical layer. An important part of the work was to find a suitable partition scheme for hardware and software and to achieve this, an investigation of processor-cycles usage was carried out to support design decisions. The hardware/software partition resulted in hardware-functionality for decode of received frames and automatic transmission of acknowledge frames.

The objective of this diploma work is to investigate a set of Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) channel models compatible with the emerging IEEE 802.11n standard. This diploma work validates also advanced, innovative tools and wireless technologies that are necessary to facilitate wireless applications while maximizing spectral efficiency and throughput. MIMO channel models can be used to evaluate new Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) proposals based on multiple antenna technologies. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate means of channel models and their implementation in different environments such as: Matlab, C++ and Advanced Design Systems (ADS). The investigation considers also a comparison between the channel models based on theoretical data and parameter setup to the channel models based on statistical characteristics obtained from measured data. Investigation and comparison of a MIMO channel models consider steering channel matrix H, spatial correlation coefficients, power delay profiles, fading characteristics and Doppler power spectrum.

The need for higher data rates in WLANs boosts drastically because tremendous consumer interest in emerging multimedia applications, such as HDTV, has been increased. Currently, the IEEE 802.11a/b/g WLANs provide a limited data rate for the current user application requirements. In order to overcome substantial limitations of the existing WLANs, the next generation of WLANs, IEEE 802.11n, is in the course of development and expected to support higher throughput, larger coverage area and better QoS. The high performance IEEE 802.11n WLAN can improve data rate significantly by using smart antenna systems in the physical layer to take advantage of multi-path fading of wireless channels. In this thesis, an analytical model is developed to study the MAC performance and the underlying smart antenna technologies used in multi-path fading channels. Multiple antennas employed in the AP arise two popular approaches to provide a significant performance improvement, diversity and multiplexing. Considering the diversity gain of multiple antennas at the AP in which the AP with multiple antennas serves one user at a time, the capacity and throughput can be obtained. In addition, the AP is possible to serve multiple users in the downlink, by exploiting the multiplexing gain of the wireless channel. We investigate the maximum network throughput when the traffic intensity of the AP approaches to one. Unlike most of previous research which focus on either the physical or the MAC layer performance, our analytical model jointly considers the MAC protocol and the smart antenna technology.