This document provides an overview of implementing and evaluating wireless local area networks (WLANs). It discusses topics such as the wireless spectrum, physical impairments like noise and interference, medium access control, security, the IEEE 802.11 standard, and transport control protocols. The objectives are to demonstrate the implementation of a WLAN topology and evaluate its performance under various conditions using tools like Wireshark.

1. Mini Project – Implementation and Evaluation of Wireless LANs BSc (Hons) Computer & Network technologies Author: University of Hertfordshire Date created: Date revised: 2009 Abstract The following resources come from the 2009/10 BSc in Computer and Network Technologies (course number 2ELE0072) from the University of Hertfordshire. All the mini projects are designed as level two modules of the undergraduate programmes. The objectives of this module are to Demonstrate within a private network environment: • The implementation of a wireless local are networks (WLANs) topology with diverse physical parameters • The real-time performance evaluation of the individual WLAN transmission characteristics in the presence of standard transport protocols. This mini-project involves the implementation of an “infrastructure” wireless network, the generation and transmission of packets and the measurement of network performance for TCP transport protocols by means of the “Wireshark” benchmarking tool. Parameters most likely to affect network performance such as the transmission medium’s signal-to-noise ratio, the propagating signal’s latency and jitter and the packet loss rate will be determined. © University of Hertfordshire 2009 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License .

17. WLAN Basic Infrastructure 3ELE0049 Optical Communication Systems

18. Wireless LANs MiniProject IEEE 802.11 Based Architecture

20. TCP Flow Control Example Wireless LANs MiniProject © Virginia Tech. taken from a course entitled ‘Wireless Networks and Mobile Systems’ by Scott f Midkiff, Luiz DaSilva & Ing-Ray Chen Sender Receiver wnd = 1200 500 bytes 500 bytes wnd = 200 200 bytes wnd = 500 500 bytes

26. Data Link and Physical layers Wireless LANs MiniProject Medium Access Control (MAC) sublayer Physical Layer convergence procedure (PLCP) sublayer Physical medium Dependent (PMD) sublayer MAC sublayer management PHY sublayer management station management Data Link Layer Physical Layer

30. This resource was created by the University of Hertfordshire and released as an open educational resource through the Open Engineering Resources project of the HE Academy Engineering Subject Centre. The Open Engineering Resources project was funded by HEFCE and part of the JISC/HE Academy UKOER programme. Slides 19 to 22 are reproduced with permission. © Virginia Tech. taken from a course entitled ‘Wireless Networks and Mobile Systems’ by Scott f Midkiff, Luiz DaSilva & Ing-Ray Chen Slides 23 & 24 are reproduced with permission.  University of Illinois, produced by M. T. Harandi, J. Hou, I. Gupta, N. Vaidya and K Nahrstedt The remaining material: © University of Hertfordshire 2009 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License . The name of the University of Hertfordshire, UH and the UH logo are the name and registered marks of the University of Hertfordshire. To the fullest extent permitted by law the University of Hertfordshire reserves all its rights in its name and marks which may not be used except with its written permission. The JISC logo is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence. All reproductions must comply with the terms of that licence. The HEA logo is owned by the Higher Education Academy Limited may be freely distributed and copied for educational purposes only, provided that appropriate acknowledgement is given to the Higher Education Academy as the copyright holder and original publisher. Wireless LANs MiniProject