An Overview of Wi-Fi booster antenna by ISERP ISERP

VRUSHALI.V.KADU et al. / (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES Vol No. 2, Issue No. 1, 047 - 051

An Overview of Wi-Fi booster antenna M.E. IV sem [Wireless Communication & Computing] Department Of Computer Science And Engineering G.H.Raisoni College Of Engineering, Nagpur (GMAIL: sparkvru@gmail.com)

Abstract:

Keywords:

Smart Antenna, MIMO (multiple input multiple output), Wi-Fi, Antenna booster, repeater.

INTRODUCTION

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A wireless local area network (WLAN) is a network of computers linked without any wires and connected by transmission of electromagnetic (radio) signals. Wi-Fi is the technology that has made it possible. Wi-Fi technology provides wireless internet access through the transmission of radio frequency carrier waves. However, electromagnetic signals weaken with increasing distance from the source. In wired networks, one can simply access far away points by bringing in longer connecting cables, but in wireless networks that is not possible. The signal strength reduces as we go away from Wi-Fi transmission. Imagine a sphere around a Wi-Fi transmission router. As we go away from center of the sphere, signal strength goes down and connectivity becomes difficult. With Wi-Fi internet access facility installed in a house, the range of Internet accessibility is compromised by the walls and the interiors of the house. It is difficult to find an optimum position for a Wi-Fi antenna with a limited range, so that one can gain access easily in the whole house. To remedy this situation and overcome this limitation of reach, one alternative is to use a wireless signal booster. As the name of the device suggests, it boosts the Wi-Fi signals and increases reach of these signals. It enlarges the sphere of reach around the Wi-Fi router.

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Assistant Professor Department Of Computer Science And Engineering G.H.Raisoni College Of Engineering, Nagpur (GMAIL: vinagulhane@gmail.com)

Advantages Of Using A Wi-Fi Signal Booster: Wi-Fi signal booster antennas, also called Wi-Fi signal amplifiers are attached to routers or access points to boost the signal. Good quality and powerful Wi-Fi signal amplifiers can increase the signal strength threefold. Bidirectional Wi-Fi signal boosters increase the strength of transmitted, as well as received signals. That is, they work both ways. They boost signal strength by as much as 600%. They can be used as laptop Wi-Fi signal boosters and extend range of Internet access far beyond your home. The need for seamless, uninterrupted and reliable communication is one of the top priorities of every house. The wide access to some really useful information base, for every kind of user makes it extremely important to set up a repeater, which delivers high performance. Repeater is a networking device which, as the name suggests, repeats the signal or increases the reach of the existing wireless network. Very often, it happens that a device has to be connected to an existing wireless network, but it is away in a remote place in the house or a building, where the signal strength is too low or unreachable. A wireless repeater is used in such cases to boost the signal strength or simply repeat the signal so that the said computer comes under the coverage area.

Wi-Fi Internet access is fast gaining popularity as we are entering the 'unplugged' phase of communication technology. This journey towards an unplugged world began with the first telegraph and first radio. Since then, telecommunication technology has not looked back and has shown its versatility by contributing to every field of technology. Wi-Fi has developed from synergy of wireless communication, computer networking and Internet technology. It has radically changed the way we connect and communicate. Wi-Fi antenna boosters are devices that help in enhancing the signal strength and range of Wi-Fi signals. This research work provides description about existing technology and also the methodology that is employed. Wireless signals are susceptible to a lot of data loss . When it comes to the wireless signal strength that will be received, the topography of the place where we stay is also a deciding factor. Bidirectional Wi-Fi signal boosters increase the strength of transmitted, as well as received signals.

V.A.GULHANE

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Wireless Signal Booster For Laptops: Wireless signals are susceptible to a lot of data loss . When it comes to the wireless signal strength that will be received, the topography of the place where we stay is also a deciding factor. If a large number of trees or buildings come in between laptop and the router we are connecting to, the signal strength will be almost nil. Besides everything, the wireless network cards, that come inbuilt, have very limited power and range. The answer then lies in using a wireless signal booster. A simple solution is getting a wireless card with a higher power or attaching an external USB antenna to the laptop. Wireless signal boosters are simple devices and can simply be plugged into the USB port of your laptop. The taller the antenna of your wireless booster, the better the reception. The working of the wireless booster is pretty simple. It accepts strong signals from the router and amplifies them inside your network, thus increasing the signal strength to a great deal. A wireless signal booster consists of two antennas - the transmitting antenna and the receiving antenna. The receiving antenna is connected to an intermediate amplifier. The other input to the intermediate amplifier is a radio signal source. The intermediate amplifier

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VRUSHALI.V.KADU et al. / (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES Vol No. 2, Issue No. 1, 047 - 051

amplifies the difference between the two signals; the received signal and the radio signal, and passes it over to a low-noise amplifier. This is done to remove any unwanted signals. The low-noise amplifier is connected to the transmitter. The low-noise amplifier further amplifies the received signal and sends it to the wireless card. The wireless signal antennas in the laptops are located internally. Generally, there are two parallel antennas located on the two sides of the LCD screen. The internal location of the wireless antennas causes bad reception of the wireless signals. So, the first problem that a wireless signal booster needs to solve, is to provide an external high gain antenna. This antenna needs to be directed to the access point. II. EXISTING TECHNOLOGY

Fig 1: Antenna Comparison

A. Smart Antenna Technology

Signal gain-inputs from multiple antenna elements are combined to optimize available power required to establish given level of coverage.

Better range/coveragefocusing the energy sent/received to increase range and coverage

Interference rejectionAntenna pattern can be suppressed toward cochannel interference sources improving the SIR of the received signals

Increased capacityprecise control of signal nulls quality and mitigation of interference combine to frequency reuse , increase distance , improving capacity

Spatial diversitycomposite information from the array is used to minimize fading and other undesirable effects of multi-path propagation.

Multi path rejection- can reduce the effective delay spread of the channel, allowing higher bit rates to be supported w/o the use of an equalizer.

Power efficiencycombines the input to multiple elements to optimize available processing gain in the downlink

Reduced expense- lower amplifier costs, power consumption and higher reliability.

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Smart Antenna Technology Basically consists of Switched-beam and Adaptive Array Antennas. Switchedbeam systems have several available fixed beam patterns. A decision is made as to which beam to access, at any given point in time, based upon the requirements of the system. Adaptive arrays allow the antenna to steer the beam to any direction of interest while simultaneously mulling interfering signals. Smart antenna systems are also a defining characteristic of MIMO systems, such as the IEEE 802.11n standard. Conventionally, a smart antenna is a unit of a wireless communication system and performs spatial signal processing with multiple antennas[6]. Multiple antennas can be used at either the transmitter or receiver. Recently, the technology has been extended to use the multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver; such a system is called a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system. As extended Smart Antenna technology, MIMO supports spatial information processing, in the sense that conventional research on Smart Antennas has focused on how to provide a beam forming advantage by the use of spatial signal processing in wireless channels. Spatial information processing includes spatial information coding such as spatial multiplexing and Diversity Coding, as well as beam forming. The dual purpose of smart antenna system is to augment the signal quality of the radio based system through more focused transmission of radio signals while enhancing capacity through increased frequency reuse. Smart antenna provides some drawbacks such as : The higher number of antenna elements making up the small base station antenna array, the higher the available gain, the larger the size and higher the price. Lower gain results in reduced size and price. Table 1 gives the various features and benefits provided by the smart antenna technology.

Benefit

Feature

Table 1: Smart Antenna Features & benefit

B. MIMO Technology Multiple-Input, multiple-Output (MIMO) is a technology that uses multiple antennas on the sides of transmitter and receiver. MIMO exploits the fact that radio frequency signals usually are reflected by the objects found in their way generating the phenomenon called multiple path. MIMO uses a technique called spatial multiplexing that transmit multiple data streams at the same frequency, but through different spatial channels. MIMO take transmission

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VRUSHALI.V.KADU et al. / (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES Vol No. 2, Issue No. 1, 047 - 051

III. METHODOLOGY

for radiolocation (radar), on the UHF and SHF parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. The relatively short wavelength of electromagnetic radiation at these frequencies allows reasonably sized reflectors to exhibit the desired highly directional response for both receiving and transmitting.

over multiple channels and converts from a shortfall in benefit. MIMO makes channel more effective because a spatial multiplexing increases the speed ratio baud/hertz. “Multiple input” component of MIMO means that a MIMO WLAN equipment sends two or more radio signals to multiple antennas, and “multiple-output” means that two or more radio signals coming from multiple antennas and reach the radio equipment[1]. Multipath propagation is a feature of all wireless communication environments. There is usually a primary (most direct) path from a transmitter at point “A” to a receiver at point “B”. Some of the transmitted signal takes other paths to the receiver, bouncing off objects, the ground, or layers of the atmosphere. Signals traversing less direct paths arrive at the receiver later and are often attenuated. A common strategy for dealing with weaker multipath signals is to simply ignore them in which case the energy they contain is wasted. The strongest multipath signals may be too strong to ignore, however, and can degrade the performance of wireless LAN equipment based on existing standards. Radio signals can be depicted on a graph with the vertical axis indicating amplitude and the horizontal axis indicating time as sine waves [5].

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The Aim is to design different Wi-Fi booster antenna and analyze the performance to improve the signal strength for long distance. To overcome drawbacks of existing technology such as : The High Cost of booster Antennas available in the market. The booster antennas available in market costs very high in dollars and are easily available in foreign countries. This adds to the cost of travelling or shipping the product to the user destination. The reduced Wi-Fi signal strength for long distance. This aims at increasing the number of access points but in spite of these there are some hot spots or locations where the range is not available because of which we receive weaker signal strength. For this, the objective is to use home made Wi-Fi booster antenna. Home made antennas solve the purpose of cost, making it cost effective. It provides us with improved signal strength. To achieve this, we need to study the various parameters of booster antenna available in the market, and increase the signal strength thereby improving the performance of our antenna .The Work can be done on Real –Time basis by testing the performance of Booster antenna in the campus at locations where the signal strength is weak. The proposed plans of work for booster antennas include:  To Design different booster antennas and then analyze their performance to increase the signal strength [Manual building and software based testing].  To Implement Wi-Fi monitoring application.  Test booster antennas for internet connectivity.

B. Cantenna

A cantenna is a directional waveguide antenna for longrange Wi-Fi used to increase the range of (or discover) a wireless network. While cantennas are useful for extending a wireless local area network (WLAN), the tiny design makes them ideal for mobile applications such as war driving. The design of the cantenna is so simple that it is often the first antenna Wi-Fi experimenters learn to build. Cantennas can even be used to increase cell phone range, improve reception and decrease noise. Cantennas can also be used as a satellite dish feed-horn. The 5.5 GHz cantenna dimensions are almost perfect in the sense that they make a perfect fit for the standard TV satellite dish. The resulting setup is a low-cost high-quality high-gain antenna. Such setups are widely used in wireless community networks for long-distance Wi-Fi links. Cantennas may be able to be used with other RF devices such as wireless security cameras.

Proposed System Deals With Following Three Antennas A. Parabolic Antenna A parabolic antenna is a high-gain reflector antenna used for radio, television and data communications, and also

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VRUSHALI.V.KADU et al. / (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES Vol No. 2, Issue No. 1, 047 - 051

USB or PCI Wi-Fi LAN card Copper plates and different wires

The Biquad antenna is simple to build and offers good directivity and gain for Point-to-Point communications. It consists of a two squares of the same size of 1/4 wavelength as a radiating element and of a metallic plate or grid as reflector. This antenna has a beam width of about 70 degrees and a gain in the order of 10-12 db. It can be used as standalone antenna or as feeder for a Parabolic Dish. The polarization is such that looking at the antenna from the front, if the squares are placed side by side the polarization is vertical.

C. Biquad Antenna

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V. CONCLUSION

IV. FLOWCHART

The flowchart shows the process of execution. The research work is mainly focused on the reducing the cost of the booster antenna by manual building and increasing the signal strength . Antennas basically are of the two types directional antennas and bi-directional antennas .The three antennas as in the proposed scheme , parabolic and the biquad antennas are bi-directional antennas and cantenna is an directional antennas , whose main purpose is to increase the range of the signal in particular direction according to requirements in db. The research work is basically processed by enhancing some of the features of the antennas so that it could be able to effectively increase the signal strength . These booster antennas are then tested by developing a software coding and hence the result will be analyzed . Development Tool: Microsoft Visual Basic. Net AirPCap SDK Hardware Requirement: Wi-Fi Access point

ISSN: 2230-7818

Wireless networks are clear benefits (mobility, flexibility, ease of installation, low maintenance cost, and scalability) but also has some disadvantages (use demanding equipments for operating parameters such as humidity , temperature etc). Smart Antennas can be used to achieve different benefits. The most important is higher network capacity. It provides better range or coverage by focusing the energy sent out into the cell, multi-path rejection by minimizing fading and other undesirable effects of multipath propagation. Smart antennas are a solution to capacity and interference Problems. It also provides some drawbacks such as, the higher number of antenna elements making up the small base station antenna array, the higher the available gain, the larger the size and higher the price. Lower gain results in reduced size and price. MIMO takes advantage of multipath propagation to increase throughput, range/coverage, and reliability. Rather than combating multipath signals, MIMO puts multipath signals to work carrying more information. By transmitting multiple signals containing different information streams over the same frequency channel, MIMO provides a means of doubling or tripling spectral efficiency. Wi-Fi signal booster antennas, also called Wi-Fi signal amplifiers are attached to routers or access points to boost the signal. Good quality and powerful Wi-Fi signal amplifiers can increase the signal strength threefold. Bidirectional Wi-Fi signal boosters increase the

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VRUSHALI.V.KADU et al. / (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES Vol No. 2, Issue No. 1, 047 - 051

strength of transmitted, as well as received signals. That is, they work both ways. They boost signal strength by as much as 600%. Thus the Wi-Fi booster antenna is used in improving the signal strength by considering the above mentioned points. It is basically effective in locations where there is coverage problem in case of mobile or when the signal strength becomes less as the distance increases . VI. FUTURE WORK It includes designing of different Wi-Fi booster antennas and testing there performance in the real environment where the signal strength is low .

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[1] Marius-Constantin popescu, “New Aspect On Wireless Communication And Network” International Journal Of Communications Issue 2, Volume 3, 2009. [2] Pieter Van Rooyen, “The Wireless World Research Forum And Future Smart Antenna Technology” 2006 IEEE Ninth International Symposium On Spread Spectrum Techniques And Applications . [3] Susmita Das, “Smart Antenna Design For Wireless Communication Using Adaptive Beam-Forming Approach” 2008. [4] Chris Loadman, “An Overview Of Adaptive Antenna Technologies For Wireless Communications, Session A3 Communication Networks And Services Research Conference 2003. [5] “Using Mimo-Ofdm Technology To Boost Wireless Lan Performance Today” , Version 1.0 June 1, 2005. [6] Richard H. Roy, “Application Of Smart Antenna Technology In Wireless Communication Systems” , 1997 IEEE. [7] Alpesh U. Bhobe, “An Overview Of Smart Antenna Technology For Wireless Communication” 2000 IEEE . [8] Karim M. Nasr, “Performance Of Different Interpolation Strategies For An OFDM/MMSE Smart Antenna System In An Indoor WLAN” 2005 IEEE. [9] C. Borja, “Impact Of The Antenna Technology And The Antenna Parameters On The Performance Of Mimo Systems” 2003 IEEE [10] Richard H. Roy, “An Overview Of Smart Antenna Technology And Its Application To Wireless Communication Systems” 1997 IEEE. [11] P. Chaipanya, “Enhancement Of Wlan Signal Strength Using Switched-Beam Single Antenna” 2009 IEEE.

REFERENCES:

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