Adjacent channel interference aware channel selection for wireless local area networks

Abstract

A channel selection mechanism, interference aware channel selection (IACS) that chooses the channel with the maximum achievable data rate is proposed. Achievable rate is calculated by considering information on signal strength of clients, airtime and effective noise floor (NF). While measuring the effective NF of a channel, adjacent channel rejection (ACR) capability of access point (AP) is taken into account. We fully characterized the ACR performance of an AP via conducted tests carried out in laboratory environment. This ACR information is then used to compute the effective NF of channels that encounter adjacent channel interference (ACI). The proposed IACS algorithm is implemented and its performance is demonstrated in an example scenario. It is shown that with the use of IACS, network sustains high throughput values even in the presence of powerful interference sources in the vicinity, whereas schemes that do not consider ACI fail even to provide communication.