Adjacent channel interference in 802.11a: Modeling and testbed validation

In this work we utilize the model for calculation of the interference power by partially overlapping channels and combine it with the signal to interference plus noise (SINK) criterion for signal capture to quantify the effect of adjacent channel interference (ACI) in 802.11a. We validate the results from our theoretical model by applying it on an in-lab testbed, in which we use signal splitters/combiners and fixed attenuators to emulate the wireless channel. Our experiment setup is able to isolate the mechanisms that the neighboring channel interference affects the 802.11a: the packet capture at the receiver and the clear channel assessment (CCA) mechanism. We quantify the effect of ACI for both of these mechanisms in terms of throughput. Our results indicate that equipping a single node with multiple interfaces requires careful channel allocation and physical antenna separation, since throughput can be severely degraded. Our future work focuses on field experimenting with 802.11a multi-radio mesh nodes in order to introduce the antenna characteristics in our model.