Intelligent RF Wall Unit for in-building WLAN applications

Author

Ford, Kenneth L. ; Rigelsford, J.M. ; Abdullah, Mustaffa ; Rokman, M.F. ; Sadruddin, N.S. ; Abdul Muin, N.F. ; Subrt, Ludek

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron. & Electr. Eng., Univ. of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

fYear

2013

fDate

11-12 Nov. 2013

Firstpage

217

Lastpage

220

Abstract

This paper presents the design and characterization of an Intelligent Wall Unit (IWU) for use in in-building WLAN applications. The IWU comprises of a pair of patch antennas connected via a wirelessly controlled RF switching circuit. The antennas are placed either side of a semi-shielded wall to allow Wi-Fi signals to be “switched” on or off depending on wireless network traffic. The prototype system is characterized using Zigbee wireless nodes measuring the RF power in a two way communications link implemented in a representative intelligent room. It is shown that the RF power can be changed by up to 20dB with the IWU switched on or off.

Keywords

Zigbee; indoor radio; microstrip antenna arrays; wireless LAN; IWU characterization; IWU design; RF power; Wi-Fi signals; Zigbee wireless nodes; in-building WLAN application; intelligent RF wall unit; patch antennas; semishielded wall; two-way communications link; wireless network traffic; wirelessly-controlled RF switching circuit; Buildings; Frequency selective surfaces; Radio frequency; Switching circuits; Wireless communication; Zigbee; Wireless network management; antennas;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Antennas and Propagation Conference (LAPC), 2013 Loughborough

Conference_Location

Loughborough

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/LAPC.2013.6711886

Filename

6711886