DEVELOPMENT AND ELECTROMAGNETIC CHARACTERIZATION OF ADAPTABLE OPEN-ARCHITECTURE WLAN SYSTEMS

The construction and comprehensive electromagnetic analysis of a novel class of WLAN layouts is presented in this paper. The main purpose is to construct a wireless system according to the 802.11 a/b/g standards, which enables significantly larger and more reliable data transfer rates, making use of a new large-scale field prediction technique, based on the parabolic equation with finite differences. Thus, four distinct structures, based on two different operating systems and two different hardware architectures, are proposed and elaborately examined. On the other hand, for the prediction algorithm a 3D wide-angle parabolic equation scheme is devised and a recursive approximation of the forward wave equation is accomplished. Unlike existing methods that characterize obstacles by means of surface impedance boundary conditions, a more rigorous approach, by treating them as penetrable objects with known material features is utilized. In this manner, the "interface" problem is systematically formulated and high levels of accuracy are attained. Moreover, the proposed technique is proven to be sufficiently faster and numerically more efficient, as the lattice, so constructed, along with the numbering of degrees of freedom remain unchanged from a parabolic equation plane to another. Extensive results and measurements certify the aforementioned merits for various realistic exterior and interior configurations.