Performance analysis of radio over fiber based om IEEE 802.11a

Abstract

In future wireless communication system, the essential for increased capacity per unit area leads to higher operating frequencies and smaller radio cells. To reduce the system installation and maintenance cost of such system, it is very important to make the Remote Access Point (RAP) or Base Station (BS) as simple as possible. This may be achieved by consolidating signal processing functions at central station (CS). This is the reason why Radio over Fiber (RoF) is introduced. RoF technology entails the use of optical fiber transmission link to distribute Radio frequency (RF) signals from a CS to BS. The purpose of this project is to analyze the performance of a RoF system based on IEEE 802.11a standard by experiment. The idea of employing IEEE 802.11a standard is due to several advantages: the low cost of equipment, its operation in the unlicensed spectrum and its higher data rates. However, original IEEE 802.11a standard is designed for service range of less than 1km. So, it cannot provide a high speed link for long distance. Fortunately, this problem is more on the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer only. By modifying the parameter in the MAC layer, it is possible to overcome the problem. A RoF system design is proposed in this project by using one of the modified protocols. The results show that the performance of the proposed system is excellent for more than 5km of service range. Previous study has been shown that the standard IEEE 802.11a MAC protocol working procedure is feasible for point to point links of up to 2.7 km only when IEEE 802.11a technology is used. Combining the results, it is concluded that a RoF system based on IEEE 802.11a with higher speed and longer distance is achievable.