IEEE 802.11 system design

The present generation of the wireless LAN (WLAN) products are implemented on Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) cards (also called PC card) that are used in laptops, computers and portable devices. The technical issues for WLAN systems are size, power consumption, bit rate, aggregate throughput, coverage range and interference robustness. Scarcity of spectrum is the biggest issue in wireless communication. The challenge is to serve the largest number of users with a specified system quality. For this purpose, network architecture and the study thereof play a very important role. This paper first discusses the considered WLAN, after which explanations of WLAN system design are given, taking into consideration critical issues such as coverage, cell planning, interference, power management and security, especially for IEEE 802.11 WLAN based on direct sequence spread spectrum (DS-SS) in the 2.4 GHz ISM band.