IEEE Communication Society Tutorials Now

Wireless LAN applications have blossomed tremendously over the last few years. What started out as cable replacement for static desktops in indoor networks has been extended to fully mobile broadband applications involving moving vehicles, high-speed trains, and even airplanes. Wi-Fi data rates have also continued to increase from 2 to 54 Mbit/s with current 802.11n proposals topping 600 Mbit/s. This development may eventually render wired Ethernet redundant in the enterprise network. When wireless LANs were first deployed, they give laptop and PDA users the same freedom with data that cellphones provide for voice. However, a wireless LAN need not transfer purely data traffic. It can also support packetized voice and video transmission. People today are spending huge amounts of money, even from office to office, calling by cellphones. With a wireless LAN infrastructure, it costs them a fraction of what it will cost them using cellphones or any other equipment. Thus, voice telephony products based on Wi-Fi standards have recently emerged. A more compelling use of wireless LAN is in overcoming the inherent limitations of wireless WANs. An increasing number of municipal governments around the world and virtually every major city in the U.S. are financing the deployment of mesh networks with the overall aim of providing ubiquitous Internet access and enhanced public services. In addition, cheap phone calls using voice over IP may become one of the biggest benefits of a citywide municipal network. This has led some technologists to predict that eventually we are more likely to see meshed wireless LAN cells that are linked together into one network rather than widespread use of high-powered WAN handsets cramming many bits into expensive and narrow slices of radio spectrum.

This first part of this tutorial will provide participants with a solid understanding of emerging wireless LAN technologies. Specific topics include quality of service, security, high throughput systems, mesh networking, WLAN/cellular interworking, coexistence, radio resource management, cognitive systems, range and capacity evaluation, hotspots, new applications, and public wireless broadband.

Ultra-wideband (UWB) is a license-free spectrum sharing technique where the transmitted RF energy is spread over a wide bandwidth so that interference to existing spectrum users is kept at a minimum. Driven largely by UWB technology, high-speed short-range Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs) are expected to proliferate in the coming years. A band-hopping OFDM transmission method developed by the WiMedia Alliance (and standardized by ECMA) has gained significant industry support for deploying high-rate WPANs. One key application envisioned for this technology is cable replacement for Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0 devices. In addition, IEEE 802.15 and ECMA have formed task groups aimed at developing new specifications for wireless connectivity in the 60 GHz frequency band. The 60 GHz band offers a large amount of bandwidth (up to 7 GHz) and relaxed transmit power limits, and therefore has the potential to meet the demand for multi-gigabit data rates. However, the need for directionality in millimeter wave operation implies that antenna sector switching and beamforming may be needed although the smaller antenna sizes make these techniques very attractive.

The second part of the tutorial will focus on the PHY and MAC layer methods developed by the WiMedia Alliance. It will also cover several challenges involving 60 GHz WPANs, including hardware and antenna design, multi-channel support, transmit power and interference considerations.

Part Number and Titles

part 0 - preview - 2 slides (2 min)
part 1 - 22 slides (19:23 min)
part 2 - 16 slides (17:46 min)
part 3 - 17 slides (20:26 min)
part 4 - 15 slides (15:17 min)
part 5 - 15 slides (20:23 min)
part 6 - 20 slides (23:33 min)
part 7 - 22 slides (23:35 min)
part 8 - 14 slides (10:31 min)
part 9 - 20 slides (22:13 min)

Total Presentation Time

2 hr 53 min 7 sec

Total Number of Slides

161