PHY modifications of IEEE 802.11 systems for transmission at very low SNR

Consumer electronic devices based on IEEE 802.11 are widely-used in home networks. Recent evolution of IEEE 802.11 mainly focused on increased data rates. Besides, the transmission of control information in smart home networks is gaining increasing importance with the emergence of the “Internet of Things”. This scenario demands robust and reliable transmission at low signal to noise ratio (SNR) while allowing for lower data rates. Therefore, this paper presents physical layer (PHY) modifications of IEEE 802.11 systems to increase the SNR robustness and communication range by reusing common system components. The performance of the presented modifications is evaluated in terms of resulting bit-error-rate (BER).