KDDI R&D Labs is developing the Wireless LAN Channel Occupancy Monitor. This system enables more efficient and consistent wireless access, by providing a numerical index for not only reception power but also channel occupancy.
"By calculating how long signals take to travel through a wireless LAN, we can find the proportion of time for which signals are actually used. In this way, we can determine the proportion of time for which the wireless LAN is used, which we call "channel occupancy." With previous technology, reception power was determined, as in the lower graph. But that index alone doesn't show how much the signal is actually used. By using channel occupancy, we can find out how much the signal is used."
With this technology, measurement doesn't use packet transmission, so there's no load on the network. Also, this system achieves high-precision, real-time measurement, with low CPU load.
"There's the time for which a signal is emitted, and the time for which the signal isn't actually emitted, but that's essential standby time for the wireless LAN. By counting that as usage time as well, we obtained a definition of 100%. We were able to then calculate accurately how much of that 100% is actually used. Also, as we're capturing the wireless LAN, there are cases where packet loss occurs. In that situation, the signal should have actually been transmitted here, so we've built in a compensation function. We can measure the channel occupancy of a wireless LAN quite accurately."
If this technology is utilized at access points, it can search each channel for occupancy, and automatically specify the least occupied channel. And if it's used in wireless LAN devices, this technology can enable smooth communication by choosing an unoccupied access point.
In the future, KDDI thinks this system could also be applied to other mobile networks, and also support the future cognitive wireless networks.
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WIRELESS JAPAN 2010
