In this post we present the work entirely accessible at link: Bézier Curves Based Novel Calibration Technique of Beamformers in IEEE 802.11 WLAN Networks, about a new way of doing beamforming in the wlan unified (WLC-based) network. Let’s recall that beamforming is the mean by which an access point (AP) concentrate the electromagnetic energy toward a client (WD or Wireless Device) to augment to accuracy of this transmission and efficiency among other benefits such as to reduce the amount of inteference in such dense networks…

The work argues that IEEE 802.11 WLAN networks face challenges for end- to-end service performance concerning new mobility applications: real-time interactive communications, analytics and business intelligence. In dense indoor deployments, co-channel interference is a major issue.

One of Radio Resource Management (RRM) techniques that is used to tackle this issue and maximize transmit opportunity is beamforming. From a signal processing perspective, the related-work concentrates on array elements’ signal weighting and phase shifting to achieve the desired angle of radiation, direction of arrival and gain. This work presents a novel beamformer’s calibration technique that enhances related-work results in the context of indoor WLAN network with a considerably lessened processing time and an augmented transmission quality.

The work proposed solution model approach is based on concepts from Computed Aided Graphical Design (CAGD) especially Bézier curves, and takes advantage of now-a-day WLAN networks design and deployment characteristics.

The figure shown next explains the basic idea behind this imporvement.

First the WLC processes an area in which the transmission from the AP to WD is more likely to happen with a minimum interference. From their, the WLC helps the AP to determine the direction more suitable for this transmission. This is an anlternative out of path in doing beamforming…

This is a different approach to beamformer calibration in the context of indoor controlled-based (WLC-based) Wlan networks. The idea here is to evaluated the impact of the outter radio environment on a transmission instead of measuring at source ou target the accuracy of this transmission and characteristics.

The work concludes that in comparison with related-work, the study presented a new and scalable method to perform beamformer calibration at source. Some motivations behind it are: simple receiver
design, lessened interaction with receivers, and high implemenation costs of near or far field tests. In addition to these design aspects, the solution is demonstrated intrinsically adaptative to changes that
are inherent to indoor dense WLAN networks. The solution’s Pseudo-AP enhancement allowed also the controller to decide on which AP to transmit and corresponding beamforming parameters. The remarkable benefit of this was to maximize the beamforming opportunity and at the same time
prevent it from impacting the overall network operation.