Real-time Wi-Fi network performance evaluation

Abstract

The most critical parameters that indicate the Wi-Fi network are throughput, delay, latency, and packet loss since they provide significant benefits, especially to the end-user. This research aims to investigate Wi-Fi performance in an indoor environment for light-of-sight (LOS) and non-light-of-sight (NLOS) conditions. The effect of the surrounding obstacles and distance has also been reported in the paper. The parameters measured are packet loss, the packet sent, the packet received, throughput, and latency. Site measurement is done to obtain real-time and optimum results. The measured parameters are then validated using the EMCO ping monitor 8 software. The comparison results between the measurement and the simulation are well presented in this paper. Additionally, the measurement distance is done up to 30 meters and the results are reported in the paper as well. The results indicate that the throughput value decreases with an increasing distance, where the lowest throughput value is 24.64 Mbps and the highest throughput value is 70.83 Mbps. Next, the maximum latency value from the measurement is 79 ms, while the lowest latency value is 56.09 ms. Finally, this research verified that obstacles and distances are among the contributing factors affecting the throughput and latency performance of the Wi-Fi network.