A study of IEEE 802.11ah and its SDR implementation

Abstract

This degree final project studies the standard IEEE 802.11ah and to implement it by Software Defined Radio is used through the program GNU Radio. First, others standards and technologies are studied, standards and technologies like IEEE 802.15.4, LoRa, SIGFOX and EnOcean. To can do a comparison with the standard IEEE 802.11ah and to can appreciate the improvements that this new standard presents. Developing the standard IEEE 802.11ah and specifically the physical layer and the MAC layer. The physical layer, this standard uses MIMO-OFDM, the spread spectrum used is a Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) and the channelization in different countries. The MAC layer has different concepts where they are developed. The MTU, two kind of stations (TIM and Non-TIM), a new parameter (AID) is defined and this leads the number of stations supported is higher. The power saving mode where each station can be between awake state and doze state. The channel access is different for TIM stations and Non-TIM stations. The process that a station has to do the association and authentications and the throughput enhancements. To implement the standard IEEE 802.11ah, first it is studied and it is analysed IEEE 802.11 a/g/p model done by the program GNU Radio. Moreover, the changes are made to adapt it to IEEE 802.11ah model. When changes are already done, the results of the transmitter and the loopback are analysed. At the transmitter, the results are FFTs of different transmission modes. In the loopback, the results are the different modulations.