Testing of Wi-Fi antennas

By:
Nayla Hamadeh
Jean Ghanem
Outline
Constructing an antenna using a
Pringles can
Theory behind Wi-Fi antenna
Testing Results
Conclusion
Constructing the antenna
Needed Parts:
Pringles can
Washers
Nuts
All-thread rod
Aluminum Tubing
Female Connector
Microwave Cable with SMA-RP
Constructing the Antenna (contd)
Construct pipe
Constructing the Antenna (contd)
Attach the connector to the Pringles
can

Theory behind Wi-Fi
Pringles antenna is based on the quarter-wave
monopole.
The copper wire is the monopole
The can wall is the conducting ground (mirror).
Radiation pattern a half-wave dipole
Radiation pattern of quarter-wave
monopole (same as the pringles
antenna)
Theory behind Wi-Fi
all-thread rod and the washers act
like receptive fields.
Washers amplify the signal
Adding more washers separated by /4
will increase the performance but make
the antenna bigger.
The rod transmit the signal

Gain and performance
The gain is based on the quarter-
monople formulas with some
modifications.
G
p
= (4*U
max
)/P
i
U
max
= (20/)*I
2

Gain is 11.75dB (12 dB)
Expected range is 5Km
Why the antenna may not work as
described in the theory?
Measurements must be exact (High frequency)
No high precision tools were used.
Small adjustments will make a difference.

Copper wire must be vertical and must be close
to the can wall.
Small space due to the connector.

A good conductor must be used for the mirror.
Aluminum inside pringles can is not designed for
antennas
Testing the Antenna
Pringles can antenna connected to
Access Point (the D-Link Access Point
DWL-900AP ), in turn connected to
the server

On other side, laptop with wireless
card (LinkSys Instant Wireless USB
Network Adapter)

Testing the Antenna
Requirement for antenna:
Have a clear line of sight

Maximum Line of sight distance we
could achieve was 450 meters
Testing the Antenna
2 types of testing performed:

Indoors: on the same floor as
multimedia lab

Outdoors: around the EECE Bldg up to
450 meters

Indoors Testing
Testing based on 3 parameters:

ping command

Playing a movie over the link

Signal Strength

Indoors Testing (contd)
Signal Strength varied between 10-
100% depending on location

ping performed generally well but
at times the packet loss rate was
50%

Video played generally well except at
specific spots


Indoors Testing (contd)
Observations:

Signal provided by antenna was most of
the time satisfying

The spots where the signal was weak
was separated from the server by
several walls
Outdoors Testing
Testing based on 4 Parameters:
Signal strength
Signal Quality
Bandwidth
Quality of Video played over the link
Provided by the LinkSys
wireless card adapter
Calculated by downloading
file using ftp
Outdoors Testing (contd)
Distance (m) Signal strength Signal quality Bandwidth (Mbps) Quality of Video
5 100% 100% 8.8 excellent
20 100% 100% 8.4 excellent
50 100% 98% 7.7 Very good
100 92% 98% 6.9 Very good
150 95% 98% 6.1 good
200 89% 95% 5.7 good
250 91% 83% 5.1 good
300 85% 75% 4.4 acceptable
350 85% 70% 3.9 acceptable
400 78% 70% 3.4 poor
450 73% 62% 2.9 poor
Outdoors Testing (contd)
Effect Of Distance on Signal Strength
and Signal Qualtiy
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0 100 200 300 400 500
Distance (m)
P
e
r
c
e
n
t
a
g
e

(
%
)
Signal strength
Signal quality
Effect of Distance on Bandwidth
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
0 100 200 300 400
Distance (m)
B
a
n
d
w
i
d
t
h

(
M
b
p
s
)
Outdoors testing (contd)
Observations:

Bandwidth very sensitive to distance.
Bandwidth depends on signal quality

Effect of weather:
Sunny days: relatively better signal due
to less interference
Thank you