Capacity Improvement of High Density Wireless LAN Networks Using Adaptive Directional Antenna

Masahiro UMEHIRA and Rihito MATSUOKA

Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Ibaraki University 4-12-1 Nakanarusawa-cho, Hitachi-shi, Ibaraki, 316-8511 Japan
umehira@mx.ibaraki.ac.jp Abstract This paper evaluates capacity improvement of high density wireless LAN networks using adaptive directional antenna, in terms of channel capacity and system capacity based on IEE802.11a OFDM PHY with CSMA based MAC protocol. Simulation results show that the utilization of adaptive directional antenna increases channel and system capacity and the improvement becomes large as the AP deployment density becomes scarcer. In addition, this paper compares two adaptive directional antenna control schemes, i.e. directivity tracking scheme and directivity switching scheme, and reveals that the directivity switching scheme achieves almost the equivalent channel and system capacity improvement as the directivity tracking scheme.

I. INTRODUCTION Wireless LAN (WLAN) such as IEEE802.11a/b/g has been rapidly deployed for indoor wireless networking and is now widely used to connect PC to broadband networks for Internet access and so on. It is expected that WLAN will be much more densely deployed in near future. As WLAN networks are not deployed on a planning basis like cellular phone networks, IEEE802.11 WLAN uses CSMA/CA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance) to avoid the mutual interference in a distributed manner. However, if WLAN networks are densely deployed in near future, severe mutual interference among WLAN networks would degrades the total network throughput performance. There are some works to improve the throughput performance in densely deployed WLAN by reducing the mutual interference with transmitting power control and so on [1]. In the standardization efforts, IEEE802.11h has been developed to provide the functions for transmitting power control and dynamic frequency selection, and IEEE802.11k has been developed for frequency management [2]. It is well known that the directional antenna improves the system capacity, though the collision of the transmitted packets increases due to the hidden terminal and/or exposed terminal problems caused by the use of directional antenna [3]-[5]. Improved MAC protocols such as directional MAC have been proposed [6], however, it has not been reported how much capacity improvement can be achieved by introducing the adaptive directional antenna in densely deployed CSMA-based wireless LAN networks. On the other hand, next generation WLAN, i.e. IEEE802.11n, employs MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) techniques using multiple antennas to achieve the higher peak bit rate and to enhance coverage area, since

MIMO techniques can be used for space division multiplexing and diversity [7]. It should be noted that multiple antenna can be used for beamforming as well to avoid the interference from other adjacent WLAN networks [8]. This motivates us to investigate the capacity improvement by using the multiple antennas for beamforming in densely deployed WLAN networks. This paper describes the capacity improvement of high density WLAN networks using adaptive directional antenna. Channel capacity and system capacity of WLAN networks using IEEE802.11a OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) PHY with adaptive directional antenna are evaluated by computer simulation, considering the density of AP (Access Point). In addition, two adaptive directional antenna control schemes, i.e. directivity tracking scheme and directivity switching scheme, are compared in terms of channel and system capacity. II. SYSTEM MODEL A. WLAN Network Model We assume infrastructure architecture mode for WLAN, where STA (Station) communicates to the associated AP for capacity evaluation. As IEEE802.11a/b/g/n uses CSMA/CA to share the wireless channel, AP and STA are assumed to transmit the signals if the carrier sensing level is less than the threshold, Rth. Fig. 1 shows a system model of high density WLAN networks where N APs are deployed in a square L on a side, the cell radius of AP is 1 and either AP or STA can transmit the signals according to the carrier sensing results. AP density is defined by N/L2. AP and STA are located at random in the computer simulation. We also assume there is only one STA within the cell covered by an AP for simplicity to evaluate the potential capacity improvement by adaptive directional antenna in high density WLAN networks. This implies no collision occurs with in a WLAN cell, but collision occurs due to the interference from other WLAN cells. When directional antenna is used in WLAN, deafness can be a problem [3], in addition to the hidden terminal problem and the exposed terminal problem. The impact of the MAC problem such as deafness, RTS/CTS (Request to send/Clear to send) to avoid the hidden terminal problem and MAC overhead is not taken into account. We suppose two elements antenna is used at both STA and AP. Antenna directivity with two elements antenna is shown

978-1-4244-4583-7/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE

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in Fig. 2, when two antenna elements are spaced by /4. In a real directional antenna, there is no perfect null, therefore, the minimum antenna gain is assumed to be limited to -20dB. Regarding the adaptive antenna control scheme, there are two approaches; the first approach is to keep the peak gain directed to the desired signals, and the second is to make the null(s) directed to the interferer(s). The third is a more complicated MMSE (Minimum Mean Square) approach to maximize the SINR (Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio) by controlling weighting factor [8]. As so many APs and STAs are deployed in high density WLAN networks, the first approach seems reasonable and simple to implement. It should be noted that each STA can easily keep the peak gain directed to the associated AP since AP usually transmits beacon every frame. For the peak gain tracking approach, we consider two adaptive antenna control schemes, i.e. (1) directivity tracking scheme and (2) directivity switching scheme, as shown in Fig. 3. In the former scheme, the peak gain of the directivity antenna at the transmitting/receiving side is directed to the receiving/transmitting side. However, it is not possible to implement the directivity tracking scheme with electronically phase and/or amplitude control. On the other hand, the directivity switching scheme is realistic to implement, where either of the two directivity antenna is selected to achieve larger gain at both the transmitting and the receiving side. B. Channel Capacity Calculation of WLAN Network As well known, channel capacity is given by Shannons equation as:
m C = log 2 (1 + SINRi ) , B i =1

AP
2 1 0

Cell

L
-1 -1 0 1 2 3

Fig. 1. System Model of High Density WLAN Networks.

F
0dB -10dB

l 4
0dB -10dB -20dB

-20dB -30dB

-20dB -10dB 0dB

Fig. 2. Directivity of Two Element Antenna.

-20dB

-10dB

0dB

(1)

where C/B is channel capacity in bit/s/Hz, SINRi is signal to interference and noise ratio of the ith link, and m is the number of available links whose carrier sensing result is less than Rth in N cells. The number, m depends on the locations of APs and STAs, and which station may transmit the signals according to carrier sensing results. Let us suppose that P is the transmitting power, a is the propagation factor, N is Gaussian noise, and ri is the distance between AP and STA of the ith desired link. SINRi is given by the following equation:
P , 4pria SINRi = m P +N a j =1 4pr j
j i

(1) Directivity tracking scheme (2) Directivity switching scheme

Fig. 3. Antenna Directivity Control Schemes.

the transmitting power, P is defined as an SNR at the cell edge with r=1, which is given by the following equation;

SNR =

P . 4p N

(3)

(2)

where P / 4pria is the received level of the desired signals, P / 4pr ja is the received level of the interference signal from the transmitter of the jth link, and rj is the distance between the receiving point of the desired ith link and the jth transmitting point, except the ith transmitting point. Note that

C. System Capacity Calculation of WLAN Network System capacity of WLAN networks using IEEE802.11a OFDM PHY is calculated in the following way. Required CNR for each bit rate, Bi to achieve 10% packet error rate is found in the reference [9]. Bi is obtained according to the SINRi calculated by the equation (2). Let us suppose the probability to achieve Bk is P (Bk). The aggregated system capacity B of WLAN network comprising N cells is given by the aggregation of the average bit rate of each WLAN cell, as given by the following equation;

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Channel Capacity (bit/s/Hz)

B = Bk P( Bk ) Pt N , k =1

(4)

25 20 15 10 5

(1) Both AP and STA with directional antenna (2) AP with directional antenna STA with omnidirectional antenna

where Pt is the transmission probability of APs and STAs within the WLAN networks, whose carrier sensing level is less than Rth, and N is the number of APs in the WLAN network. In the system capacity calculation, PER (Packet Error Rate) was not considered for simplicity. III. SIMULATION RESULTS A. Simulation Conditions Based on the system model described in section 2, we have carried out the computer simulations to evaluate the improvement of channel capacity and system capacity in high density WLAN networks using adaptive directional antenna. In the simulation, N is set to 10. As channel capacity and system capacity depends on the location of APs, 10 APs are located 500 times at random and STA is located 100 times per location of AP. We suppose that propagation factor, a is 3 and Rth is 5dB higher than thermal noise level. All of APs and STAs are supposed to use the same frequency channel. The peak gain of directional antenna is assumed to be the same as that of omni-directional antenna for comparison purpose. With the above-mentioned simulation conditions, channel capacity and system capacity have been evaluated using equations (1) and (4) through computer simulations. B. Channel Capacity Evaluation The channel capacity of WLAN using adaptive directional antenna and that using omni-directional antenna have been evaluated for four cases, i.e. (1) both AP and STA use directional antenna, (2) only AP uses directional antenna, (3) only STA uses directional antenna and (4) both AP and STA use omni-directional antenna for reference. Median value of channel capacity of each case is shown as a function of the reciprocal of AP density, i.e. 1/AP density, in Fig. 4. We assume all of the STAs and APs equally transmit the signals in 50% probability. As shown in Fig. 4, channel capacity is improved by introducing adaptive directional antenna. Channel capacity improvement is as large as 85% when case (1) is compared with case (4) at the density of 10/9. However, when AP density is as large as 10/1, the improvement is only 18%. This little improvement is due to the increase of the interference according to the increase of AP density. Furthermore, the simulation results show that channel capacity is also improved when adaptive directional antenna is employed at either AP or STA. The improvement in the cases of (2) and (3) is almost half compared with that in the case of (1). Note that we assume the directivity tracking scheme is employed. C. System Capacity Evaluation Following the calculation method described in section B, system capacity of high density WLAN networks using IEEE802.11a OFDM PHY has been evaluated. Simulation

0 1/10 2/10 3/10 3/10 5/10 6/10 7/10 8/10 9/10 10/10

(3) AP with omnidirectional antenna STA with directional antenna

(4) Both AP and STA with omni-directional antenna

1/ AP Density
Fig. 4. Channel Capacity as a function of AP Density when Directivity Tracking Scheme is used.
: Directional antenna : Omni-directional antenna 100% 90%

54
Mbps

54
Mbps

54
Mbps

54
Mbps

54
Mbps

54
Mbps

Probability, P(B)

80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

48 36

48 36 24

48 36 24 18 12 9 6 0

48 36 24 18 12 9 6 0

48 36 24 18 12 9 6 0

48 36 24 18 12 9 6 0

24 18 12 9 06

18 12 9 6 0

1/10

4/10

9/10

1 / AP Density
Fig. 5. Distribution of Bit Rate as a function of AP Density when Directivity Tracking Scheme is used.

Transmission probability, Pt

50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 1/10 Omni-directional antenna 5/10 9/10 Directional antenna

1 / AP Density

Fig. 6. Transmission probability, Pt as a function of AP Density when Directivity Tracking Scheme is used.

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100

System capacity (Mbps)

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1/10

Adaptive directional antenna with directivity tracking

Omni-directional antenna

1/ AP Density

5/10

9/10

Fig. 7. System Capacity as a function of AP Density when Directivity Tracking Scheme is used.

25

Channel capacity (bit/s/Hz)

Directivity tracking

20 15 10 5
Both AP and STA with omni-directional antenna Both AP and STA with directional antenna Directivity switching

0 1/10 2/10 3/10 4/10 5/10 6/10 7/10 8/10 9/10 10/10

bit rate becomes smaller if directional antenna is used. In addition, it also becomes smaller as the AP density gets scarcer. Both of these facts would be caused by the hidden and/or exposed terminal problem, which causes the increase of interference. Note that 0Mbps means packet loss due to collision in Fig.5 and 3-4% collision is observed in the case of AP density 10/4 and 10/9. Collision of 10/1 AP density is scarcer than that of larger AP density. The transmission probability, Pt as a function of the reciprocal of AP density is shown in Fig.6. Pt is the probability with which the APs and STAs can transmit among N sets of APs and STAs. As seen there, the introduction of adaptive directional antenna increases the transmission probability when compared with omnidirectional antenna because the interference is mitigated by the directivity of antenna. The transmission probability increases as the AP density becomes scarcer, but the collision probability increases. The resulting system capacity can be calculated using the results of Fig.5 and Fig.6. System Capacity as a function of the reciprocal of AP density is shown in Fig.7. In the same manner as the results in Fig.4, system capacity increases by using adaptive directional antenna, compared with that using omni-directional antenna. The system capacity improvement is as large as 59% and 78% at AP density of 10/4 and 10/9, however the improvement is as small as 11% when AP density is as high as 10/1. These results indicate that the adaptive directional antenna is effective when AP density is relatively small and it can improve channel and system capacity just a little when AP density is as high as 10/1. D. Comparison between Directivity Tracking Scheme and Directivity Switching Scheme. Channel capacity with the directivity switching is compared to that with the directivity tracking in Fig.8. As shown in Fig.8, the channel capacity with the directivity switching is a little smaller than that with the directivity tracking, however no significant degradation is observed at any AP density. System capacity with the directivity switching is also compared to that with the directivity tracking, as shown in Fig.9. The system capacity improvement with the directivity switching is less than that with the directivity tracking, however the improvement degradation is also very little. The advantage of the directivity switching scheme is that it can control the directivity electronically and the control is easy enough to implement. As shown in Fig.8 and Fig.9, in the case of two elements antenna, the directivity switching scheme provides almost the same channel capacity and system capacity improvement as the directivity tracking scheme. IV. CONCLUSIONS This paper describes capacity improvement of high density WLAN networks using adaptive directional antenna. Evaluation results by computer simulation show that both channel and system capacity increase by introducing adaptive directional antenna and the improvement becomes larger as the deployment density gets scarcer, however the

1 / AP Density
Fig. 8. Comparison of Channel Capacity as a function of AP Density, with Directivity Tracking Scheme and Directivity Switching Scheme.

100

System capacity (Mbps)

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1/10

Directivity tracking Directivity switching

Omni-directional antenna

1 / AP Density

5/10

9/10

Fig. 9. Comparison of System Capacity as a function of AP Density, with Directivity Tracking Scheme and Directivity Switching Scheme.

results of distribution of each bit rate, B for AP density of 10/1, 10/4 and 10/9 are shown in Fig.5 when directivity tracking scheme is used. As seen in Fig.5, probability of high

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improvement is as small as 10% at the AP density of 10/1 when two elements antenna is used. In addition, two adaptive directional antenna control schemes, i.e. directivity tracking scheme and directivity switching scheme have been compared in terms of channel and system capacity. This paper reveals that the directivity switching scheme provides almost the same capacity enhancement as the ideal directivity tracking scheme. Future work includes the performance evaluation when more antenna elements are used, and the comparison between the system capacity achieved by adaptive directional antenna and that achieved by space division multiplexing using MIMO. In addition, more detailed MAC behaviour will be investigated. REFERENCES
[1] Jing Zhu et al., Joint Tuning of Physical Carrier Sensing, Power and Rate in High-Density WLAN, APCC 2007. [2] J.O. Neel and J.H.Reed, Performance of Distributed Dynamic Frequency Selection Schemes for Interference Reducing Networks, IEEE MILCOM 2006, pp.1-7, 23-25 Oct. 2006. [3] Romit Roy Choudhury and Nitin H. Vaidya, Deafness: A MAC Problem in Ad hoc Networks when using Directional Antennas, Proc. ICNP04. [4] S.Yi, Y.Pei, S.Kalyanaraman, On the capacity improvement of ad hoc wireless networks using directional antenna, Mobihoc 2003. [5] R.Ramanathan, J.Redi, C.Santivanez, D.Wiggins and S.Polit,"Ad hoc networking with directional antennas: a complete system solution," IEEE JSAC, vol.23, pp.496-506, March 2005. [6] Young-Bae Ko, V.Shankarkumar, N.H.Vaidya, "Medium access control protocols using directional antennas in adhoc networks," Proc. INFOCOM 2000, vol.1, pp.13-21, 2000. [7] IEEE P802.11n/D4.00 Draft STANDARD Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical (PHY) specifications: Amendment 4: Enhancements for Higher Throughput [8] F.Siddiqui, V.Sreng, F.Danilo-Lemoine, D.Falconer, Antenna array training and adaptation techniques in an unpredictable and uncontrolled interference environment, IEEE VTC 2003-Fall. Vol.2, pp.219 - 1223, 6-9 Oct. 2003 [9] IEEE 802.11a-1999 Supplement to IEEE Standard for Information Technology and Telecommunications and Information Exchange between Systems -part 11: LAN MAC and PHY Specifications :High Speed Physical Layer in the 5GHz Band , Sep 1999.

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