Advanced frequency hopping modulation for spread spectrum WLAN

Abstract

A wireless LAN standard developed by IEEE committee P802.11 operates in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz ISM band. This band is a very hostile environment due to many unpredictable interference sources, such as microwave ovens, utilizing the same frequency bands. At the same time the allowed signal power density that can be used is limited in order to minimize the interference to other users in the same band. In order to avoid these interference and keep a low signal power density the standard supports both direct sequence (DS) and frequency hopping (FH) modulation for these applications. The new test beds for multimedia wireless (WLANs) also use FH modulation. We analyze the performance of a modification of the FH multiple frequency shift keying (MFSK) system that includes a multitone multiamplitude MFSK signal, designated as amMFSK modulation. In this case, in order to meet the transmitted power density limits imposed in the ISM band, the signal energy is split into m separate tones. This makes the system more vulnerable to noise and fading, but still the overall flow of useful information will be increased. The results demonstrate that under the large range of the signal, channel and interference parameters this system offers better performance.