Typical IEEE 802.11a systems are used for short range communication. In this project, we study such systems for medium range connections. The objective of the project is to gather information on the efficiency and reliability of standard WLAN systems used with free-space radio links of medium range. For this reason, we collect channel, packet error and environmental statistics and analyze the effect of several factors on the transmission quality.

This project is performed in cooperation with the Eggenet GmbH, Paderborn.

The basic results of this study are now available as technical report:

• F. Eitzen, S. Valentin, K. Gossens, H. Karl and O. Rolfes "Experimental evaluation of IEEE 802.11a-based WLANs for medium range communication" Technical report TR-RI-07-281, University of Paderborn, Department of Computer Science, February 2007. 

Download measurement framework:

• Tools for measuring transport-layer throughput, latency, and jitter: [Download tgz]
  Iperf and Perl are required. Providing online figures requires Gnuplot and a webserver. For further instructions please refer to the README files in the source code archive

Using these tools is permitted only if the above technical report TR-RI-07-281 is cited in related publications.

We would appreciate to be notified of any bugs and problems of this software which is offered as it is without any warranty and support.

Measuring setup

The established radio link ranges from the university building to the Eggenet building. The distance between the antennas is about 3 km. Both antennas are placed on the top of the buildings. There is a line of sight connection between the antennas.

As sender and receiver off-the-shelf IEEE 802.11a access points and standard directional antennas are used. The generator creates a packet flow and sends it via the wireless channel to the reflector. The measured data transferred back using the Internet connection and stored at the generator.

Results

Impressions