Wireless LAN

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Outline
History & General information General architecture Link level Physical level Summary Related resources

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Why WLAN ?
GSM/HSCSD/GPRS/EDGE/. . . complex infrastructure licensed radio resources may be too expensive IrDA short distance point-to-point connection BlueTooth short distance no proper roaming

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WLAN network
unlicensed radio resources bandwidth up to 54 Mbps distance up to 400 m up to 50 nominal users carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA)

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IEEE standards
802.2 Logical link control 802.3 Ethernet (CSMA/CD) 802.4 Token Ring 802.10 Security 802.11 Wireless LAN (CSMA/CA)

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802.11 standards
802.11 (developed in 1997) 802.11b (ratied in 1999) 802.11a (ratied in 1999, production starts in 2001) 802.11g (ratied in 2003) 802.11e (draft, Quality-of-Service)

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Scope of the 802.11 standards

application presentation session transport network link physical

MAC PHY

WLAN only species the link and the physical level, thus enabling high-level protocol to function in the same way.

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General structure

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Ad-hoc network
communication is established between multiple stations (STAs) all stations have a fair access to the network (BSS)

BSS
STA

STA

STA

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Infrastructure network
the access point(AP) connects the WLAN network to the backbone(DS) set of APs and DS forms the extended service network (ESS)

BSS 2 STA DS
AP AP

STA

AP

BSS 1
STA STA

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Mobility types
no transition: STA moves within a cell BSS transition: STA moves from one cell to another within the same ESS ESS transition: STA leaves the ESS
iti on

ES

ns tra

BSS 2
STA
BS S tr ti si an on

AP AP

BSS 1
STA STA
no itio ns tra n

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Roaming procedure
roaming type nomadic roaming seamless roaming roaming decision signal/noise level packet loss ... roaming direction preemptive AP discovery roam-time discovery active/passive scanning roaming deassociation from the old AP association with a new AP
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Operation modes
Distributed coordination function (DCF) used in ad-hoc and infrastructure networks all stations have equal rights to access the medium
advantages: simplicity, cheap solutions disadvantages: collisions, degraded Quality-of-Service (QoS)

Point coordination function (PCF) used in infrastructure networks only behaviour of all stations is coordinated by PC
advantages: coordinated access to the medium, no collisions, better functioning disadvantages: increased complexity, ineffective bandwidth allocation
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Link level

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Frame format
2 2 6 Frame Duration/ Address 1 Control ID 6 Address 2 6 Address 3 2 Sequence Control 6 Address 4 0-2312 Frame Body 4 FCS

Frame Control Duration/ID

Time necessary to transmit data Association Identity (AID)

Address X

BSSID - identier of the cell DA - destination address SA - source address RA - receiving station address TA - transmitting station address Sequence Control consists of the Sequence and Fragment Number
Frame Body FCS

- frame control sequence calculated over all elds

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TLI348 Wireless systems

Frame control eld

2 Protocol version 2 Type 4 Subtype 1 1 1 1 1 1 Pwr More To From More Retry WEP Order Frag Mgmt Data DS DS 1 1

determines the version type and subtype elds identify the function of the frame To DS is set if a frame is destined for the DS From DS is set if a frame exits the DS More Frag is set if there is another frame to follow Retry is set if this frame is a retransmission Pwr Mgmt indicates the power management mode More Data indicates that there are more data WEP indicates that data in the frame body has been processed by WEP Order indicates the Strictly Ordered class
protocol version

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Types of frames
Management authentication/deauthentication association/reassociaton/deassociation probe beacon Control power-save polls acknowledgments Data user data contention-free polls/acknowledgements

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Distributed coordination functioning Backoff time

as the medium becomes idle, all STAs wait for DIFS seconds after, all STAs generate randomly the backoff time STA with the elapsed backoff timer begins to transmit

STA1

busy medium

DIFS  -

backo

data

STA2

busy medium

DIFS  -

backo

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Distributed coordination functioning Acknowledgments

The SIFS interval, which is shorter than DIFS, is used to send the control data.
busy medium
DIFS  -

backo

busy medium

SIFS

 -

control data

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Distributed coordination functioning Simple interaction

STA1 sends data to STA2 STA2 acknowledges the received data
DIFS

 STA1 data
DIFS busy medium  -

STA2

busy medium

SIFS

 -

ACK

DIFS

 -

Other

busy medium

DIFS busy medium  -

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Distributed coordination functioning RTS/CTS exchange

RTS/CTS exchange is used when an STA has to transmit several fragments without being interrupted. RTS (Request To Send) initiates the RTS/CTS exchange CTS (Clear To Send) is the response to the RTS frame SIFS interval is used between data and control frames
SIFS RTS  SIFS SIFS SIFS SIFS

STA1

 SIFS

Data

 SIFS

 SIFS

Data

  ACK  SIFS DIFS

STA2

 CTS  -

SIFS

 ACK  -

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Point coordination functioning

initiated by the PC after the PIFS interval with the Beacon frame every STA is polled for data with the CF-Poll frame ended with the the CF-End frame SIFS interval is used between all frames

 
PC

Contention-free repetition interval Contention-free period

-

Contention period

PIFS SIFS SIFS - Beacon  CF-Poll  -

SIFS  CF-End  -

DIFS

PIFS - Beacon

STA

SIFS SIFS  CF-ACK  -

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Point coordination functioning

PC sends data to STA1 and asks whether it has data to send STA1 receives data, acknowledges the CF-Poll and sends data PC acknowledges data from STA1, sends data to STA2 and asks whether it has data STA2 receives data, acknowledges the CF-Poll and sends data PC acknowledges data and end the CF period

PC

PIFS -

SIFS SIFS B  data -CF-Poll  -

data SIFS CF-ACK+CF-Poll 

SIFS

SIFS CF-ACK

 CF-End -

STA1

SIFS data

 CF-ACK  SIFS data SIFS

STA2

 CF-ACK  Wireless LAN p.23/41

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Physical level

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Structure of the physical level

The physical layer consists of two sublayers: Physical Layer Convergence Procedure (PLCP) Physical Medium Dependent (PMD) modulation frequency band

MAC PLCP PHY PMD

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PLCP frame (802.11)

PLCP preamble and PLCP header are always encoded at the rate of 1Mbit/s so that these data can always be decoded.  1Mbit/s
128 16 8 8 16 16

Sync

SFD

Signal

Service

Length

CRC

MPDU

 

PLCP Preamble

-

PLCP Header PPDU

Sync:

synchronization eld SFD: start frame delimiter Signal: PHY modulation Service: reserved Length: number of microseconds required to transmit the MPDU CRC: protects Signal, Service, and Length elds
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Short PLCP frame (802.11b)

Sync eld is shorter (56 bits) PLCP header is encoded at the rate of 2Mbit/s

56

1Mbit/s
16

-
8 8

2Mbit/s
16 16

Sync

SFD

Signal

Service

Length

CRC

MPDU

 

PLCP Preamble

-

PLCP Header PPDU

Short PLCP frame is optional in 802.11b and is mandatory in 802.11g.

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PLCP frame (802.11a)


16s

6 Mbit/s
24

16 6

Sync
4 1

Signal
12 1 6

Service

MPDU

Tail

Rate X

Length

Parity

Tail


Sync:

PLCP header

synchronization eld Signal: describes the way data are encoded Rate: rate of data Length: length of PSDU Parity: parity bit for bits 0 16 Tail: additional time for decoder to switch to the necessary mode Service: descrambler initialization

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Long & short hybrid PLCP frame (802.11g)

DSSS is used to encode preamble and header (802.11b) OFDM is used to encode data (802.11a) often referred to as the DSSS-OFDM modulation

128 16

1Mbit/s
8 8 16 16

Length CRC Sync Signal MPDU Tail

Sync

SFD

Signal

Service

 
56

OFDM PSDU

1Mbit/s
16

-
8 8

2Mbit/s
16 16

CRC Sync Signal MPDU Tail

Sync

SFD

Signal

Service

Length

OFDM PSDU

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Modulations
Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) dened in 802.11 Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) dened in 802.11 High-Rate Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (HR/DSSS) dened in 802.11b extended in 802.11g Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) dened in 802.11a

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DSSS
data are sent in the form of chips (11Mchips/s) 11 consecutive chips constitute one symbol (1Msymbol/s) the chipping sequence 10110111000 is used to encode one bit Differential Binary Phase Shift Keying (DBPSK) (1 bit/symbol)
Input 0 1 Phase change 0

Differential Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (DQPSK) (2 bits/symbol)

Input 00 01 11 10
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Phase change 0 /2 3/2 or (/2)

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HR/DSSS
The Complementary Code Keying (CCK) modulation is used to encode the sequence of chips. data are sent in the form of chips (11Mchips/s) 8 consecutive chips form one symbol (11/8 Msymbol/s)
c = {ej(1 +2 +3 +4 ) , ej(1 +3 +4 ) , ej(1 +2 +4 ) , ej(1 +4 ) , ej(1 +2 +3 ) , ej(1 +3 ) , ej(1 +2 ) , ej1 }

CCK modulation at 5.5 Mbit/s (4 bits/symbol) bits (0,1) dene the phase change using DQPSK bits (2,3) encode the basic symbol. i.e. the sequence of chips CCK modulation at 11 Mbit/s (8 bits/symbol) bits (0,1) dene the phase change using DQPSK bits (2,3) (4,5) (6,7) encode the basic symbol using QPSK
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Extended Rate PHY (ERP)

A single-carrier modulation scheme that encodes the payload using the packet binary convolutional code (PBCC). ERP-PBCC-22 clock works at 11MHz symbol rate is 11Msymbol/s 2 bits are transferred per symbol (22 Mbit/s) ERP-PBCC-33 clock works at 16.5MHz symbol rate is 16.5Msymbol/s 2 bits are transferred per symbol (33 Mbit/s) These data rates are optional and may be not supported by an STA.

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OFDM
each OFDM symbol consists of 52 subcarriers (NST ) 48 data subcarriers (NSD ) 4 pilot subcarriers (NSP ) each subcarrier can encode 1 or more bits (NBP SC ) BPSK 1 bit per subcarrier QPSK 2 bits per subcarrier 16-QAM 4 bits per subcarrier 64-QAM 6 bits per subcarrier convolutional code produce data bits at a certain rate (R) 1/2 2/3 3/4

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OFDM data rates

Modulation Bits per subcarrier BPSK BPSK QPSK QPSK 16-QAM 16-QAM 64-QAM 64-QAM 1 1 2 2 4 4 6 6 Bits per OFDM symbol 48 48 96 96 192 192 288 288 Coding rate 1/2 3/4 1/2 3/4 1/2 3/4 2/3 3/4 Data bits per OFDM symbol 24 36 48 72 96 144 192 216 Data rate (Mbit/s) 6 9 12 18 24 36 48 54

Data rates 6, 12, and 24 Mbits/s are mandatory.

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Frequency band 2.4GHz (802.11{b,g})

Frequency band 2.42.497 is used One channel occupies 20 MHz A channel is positioned using the channel ID at the step of 5MHz
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

2412 2417 2422 2427 2432 2437 2442 2447 2452 2457 2462 2467 2472 2484

It is possible to organize three non-overlapping channels (high rate) or six half-overlapping channels (low rate).      

2412 2417 2422 2427 2432 2437 2442 2447 2452 2457 2462 2467 2472 2484

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Frequency band 5GHz (802.11a)

Frequency band 5.15 5.825 GHz is used lower subband (5.15 5.25) middle subband (5.25 5.35) upper subband (5.725 5.825) Each subband accommodates 4 non-overlapping channels

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Summary

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WLAN specications
802.11b Year Number of channels Data rates (Mbps) 1999 3 33, 22, 11, 5.5, 2, 1 30m (11Mbps) 91m (1Mbps) 120m (11Mbps) 460m (1Mbps) 2.4 2.497 DSSS HR/DSSS (CCK) ERP-PBCC 802.11g 2003 3 54, 48, 36, 24, 18, 12, 11, 9, 6, 5.5, 2, 1 30m (54Mbps) 91m (1Mbps) 120m (54Mbps) 460m (1Mbps) 2.4 2.497 DSSS DSSS-OFDM 802.11a 1999 8(4) 54, 48, 36, 24, 18, 12, 9, 6 12m (54Mbps) 91m (6 Mbps) 30m (54 Mbps) 305m (6Mbps) 5.15 5.875 OFDM

Indoor range Outdoor range (LOS) Wireless band (GHz) Modulation

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Hardware vendors
Abocom Accton Acer Acrowave Actiontec Adaptec Airvast Alfa Allied Telesyn Allnet Alloy Askey Asus
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Buffalo Cameo CC&C Belkin Cisco/Aironet Compaq CompuShack D-Link Dell Delta Networks Eusso IST Wave Fujitsu Siemens GemTek

Global Sun HP IBM Intel LG LinkPro LinkSys Microsoft Motorola Netgear Nokia Nortel Proxim Samsung

Sitecom SMC Sparklan 3Com Tellus W-Link Z-Com Zyxel

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Useful links & resources

William Stallings. Data and Computer Communication Pejman Roshan, Jonathan Leary. 802.11 Wireless LAN Fundamentals. Cisco Press Bruce Alexander. 802.11 Wireless Network Site Surveying and Installation. Cisco Press IEEE Wireless Standards http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/802.11.html WLAN forum http://www.wlanforum.com Linux WLAN page http://www.linux-wlan.org NS-2 simulator http://www.isi.edu/nsnam

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