WLAN / Wi-Fi Technology

IEEE 802.11 a, b, g, j, p and IEEE 802.11n

WiFi

IEEE 802.11a, b, g, j, p, n, IEEE 802.11ac and IEEE 802.11ad

WLAN is a wireless local area network technology that uses OFDM as the multiple access scheme (except 11b). The maximum communications distance is 100 meters. WLAN communicates in the ISM bands (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz), which are available all over the world. WLAN is highly optimized for IP and Ethernet. Therefore, it is ideally suited for wireless Internet access.

The standards association approved the IEEE 802.11n amendment to the IEEE 802.11-2007 standard in September 2009. The high throughput (HT) enhancement IEEE 802.11n includes MIMO technologies with up to four antennas and a higher bandwidth of 40 MHz.

The next steps in WLAN PHY standardization are the 802.11ac and 802.11ad amendments, which focus on higher data rates. While 802.11ad targets the 60 GHz frequency bands, 802.11ac targets the frequency bands below 6 GHz. To achieve higher data rates, 11ac adds higher channel bandwidths of 80 MHz and 160 MHz, supports 8 spatial streams and a 256QAM subcarrier modulation.

Amendments IEEE 802.11j and IEEE 802.11p use the half clock rate as defined in the IEEE 802.11 standard. This increases robustness to achieve higher mobility, and reduces the required spectrum bandwidth to 10 MHz. IEEE 802.11p, published in 2010, is specifically defined for car-to-car (C2C), vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications.

WLAN / Wi-Fi at Rohde & Schwarz

Rohde & Schwarz offers a broad range of test and measurement equipment for WLAN. This includes unique test instruments such as vector signal generators, which feature a two-path concept to generate the precoded signals for two MIMO transmit antennas in one box. It also includes signal and spectrum analyzers with a 160 MHz signal analysis bandwidth, which are ideal for wideband technologies and wireless connectivity testers which offer fast and accurate WLAN RF and end-to-end data testing.

All in one: Rohde & Schwarz test instruments are based on multi-standard platforms supporting wireless connectivity and cellular standards in one box.

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