Indoor WLAN Monitoring and Planning Using Empirical and Theoretical Propagation Models

Abstract

The wireless propagation prediction and measurement techniques are the ideas behind a successful deployment of indoor wireless local area network (WLAN). Therefore, a solution is proposed to monitor and plan the WLAN, based on the propagation prediction and measurement techniques with coloured contour visualization for IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n standards. The solution is able to help wireless designers to visualize the WLAN signal coverage, overlapping channel interference, data rate and signal to noise ratio (SNR). The radio predictions or planning works are based on the theoretical model and the measurements or monitoring works are based on empirical model. The visualization will show the results of the WLAN monitoring and planning works with indoor wireless propagation effects from the multiple floors of the building. The experimental devices are two dual band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz (IEEE 802.11n) access points, a 2.4 GHz (802.11g) access point, and a wireless receiver from a laptop.