The effect of people movement on Wi-Fi link throughput in indoor propagation environments

While various key performance limiting factors of IEEE 802.11-based Wi-Fi networks such as wireless protocols, radio propagation environment and signal interference have been studied by many network researchers, the effect of the movement of people (human) on Wi-Fi link throughput in indoor propagation environments has not been fully explored yet. This paper investigates the effect of people movement on Wi-Fi link throughput in six different indoor environments (i.e. lounge, bedroom, garage, common room, laboratory, and office space) using radio propagation measurements. Using a pair of wireless laptops we conducted various trials by considering both the straight line and random human movement in the above mentioned environments. Results obtained show that Wi-Fi link throughput degrades up to 20.4% as a result of people movement. The difference between the impact of straight line and random movement on Wi-Fi throughput is found to have insignificant. The research findings reported in this paper provide some insight into the impact of people movement on Wi-Fi link throughput in indoor environments.