About WLAN and Interferers

In order to make the reader familiar with relevant concepts and working principles of WLAN communication systems, it is recommended to read the prepared document:

• Working Principles of WLAN Systems and Interference Sources

Measurement Campaign

Based on the knowledge gained from the WLAN introduction guide, one can now proceed with the measurment campaign. The main goal of this task was to observe a real-life traffic scenario and to describe the data statistically.

• Interference Measurement Campaign

Measuring Interference

A measurment setup consisting of two Linux PCs with WLAN modules implemented was created to measure interference perturbations. With this setup, it is possible to evaluate and compare different interference sources with expensiver RF equipment, replaying ISM band traffic. 

• Linux based WLAN Test Setup

Noise Source

As one goal of this project is to find low-cost implementations which are capable to emulate real interference scenarios, a digitally-controlled noise source has been built. This device is capable to modulate it's output power level dynamically with an Arduino based microcontroller. 

• Low-Cost Interference Emulator

Results & Conclusion

Lastly, one can find the most reasonable interference emulation results by the link below. In the first part a vector signal generator is utilized to compare different emulation techniques with ISM band traffic. The second part verifies if it is possible to replace expensive RF equipment by a low-cost noise source.

• Results