The effect of mobility, security and shadowing on latest wireless LAN standard (IEEE802.11ac)

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the evaluation of IEEE 802.11ac WLAN performance using TCP and UDP for both versions of the Internet Protocol (IPv4, IPv6) in three scenarios, namely, the effect of implementing WPA2 security encryption, the impact of shadowing in laboratory environment, and human movement effects in indoor environmental conditions. This thesis will also provide knowledge about the behaviour of commonly used protocols on a new wireless standard (802.11ac) in real network environments. The performance metrics of wireless network testbeds such as throughput, round trip time, and CPU utilisation are gathered and analysed.

The findings of this study concludes that the shadowing environment has a severe impact of 802.11ac WLAN performance. Applying WPA2 security also reduces the performance metrics measurement. The presence of human movement has an insignificant impact of the 802.11ac WLAN performance. IPv4 outperforms IPv6 on different levels, depending on the network environment. TCP provides lower performance than UDP.

This thesis will be beneficial to academic researchers and to businesses wanting to get the best performance out of IEEE 802.11ac standard