A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes.
Wireless communication is the transfer of information between two or more points that do not use an electrical conductor as a medium by which to perform the transfer. The most common wireless technologies use radio waves. With radio waves, intended distances can be short, such as a few meters for Bluetooth or as far as millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications. It encompasses various types of fixed, mobile, and portable applications, including two-way radios, cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and wireless networking. Other examples of applications of radio wireless technology include GPS units, garage door openers, wireless computer mouse, keyboards and headsets, headphones, radio receivers, satellite television, broadcast television and cordless telephones. Somewhat less common methods of achieving wireless communications include the use of other electromagnetic wireless technologies, such as light, magnetic, or electric fields or the use of sound.
The Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) was a professional organization which existed from 1912 until December 31, 1962. On January 1, 1963 it merged with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) to form the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
A cognitive radio (CR) is a radio that can be programmed and configured dynamically to use the best wireless channels in its vicinity to avoid user interference and congestion. Such a radio automatically detects available channels in wireless spectrum, then accordingly changes its transmission or reception parameters to allow more concurrent wireless communications in a given spectrum band at one location. This process is a form of dynamic spectrum management.
A space–time code (STC) is a method employed to improve the reliability of data transmission in wireless communication systems using multiple transmit antennas. STCs rely on transmitting multiple, redundant copies of a data stream to the receiver in the hope that at least some of them may survive the physical path between transmission and reception in a good enough state to allow reliable decoding.
IEEE 802.11r-2008 or fast BSS transition (FT), is an amendment to the IEEE 802.11 standard to permit continuous connectivity aboard wireless devices in motion, with fast and secure client transitions from one Basic Service Set to another performed in a nearly seamless manner. It was published on July 15, 2008. IEEE 802.11r-2008 was rolled up into 802.11-2012. The terms handoff and roaming are often used, although 802.11 transition is not a true handoff/roaming process in the cellular sense, where the process is coordinated by the base station and is generally uninterrupted.
IEEE 802.11p is an approved amendment to the IEEE 802.11 standard to add wireless access in vehicular environments (WAVE), a vehicular communication system. It defines enhancements to 802.11 required to support Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) applications. This includes data exchange between high-speed vehicles and between the vehicles and the roadside infrastructure, so called V2X communication, in the licensed ITS band of 5.9 GHz (5.85–5.925 GHz). IEEE 1609 is a higher layer standard based on the IEEE 802.11p. It is also the basis of a European standard for vehicular communication known as ETSI ITS-G5.
A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points in wireless networks. Instead, each node participates in routing by forwarding data for other nodes, so the determination of which nodes forward data is made dynamically on the basis of network connectivity and the routing algorithm in use.
Ian F. Akyildiz received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany, in 1978, 1981 and 1984, respectively. Currently, he is the President and CTO of the Truva Inc. since March 1989. He retired from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Georgia Tech in 2021.
IEEE Wireless Communications is a bimonthly scientific journal published by the IEEE Communications Society. Papers highlight such topics as portable telephones, communicating palmtop computers, protocols, messaging, communications, and personalized traffic filtering. It also covers such policy issues as spectrum allocation, industry structure, and technology evolution.
The IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) promotes the advancement of science, technology and applications in communications and related disciplines. It fosters presentation and exchange of information among its members and the technical community throughout the world. The Society maintains a high standard of professionalism and technical competency. The IEEE Communications Society is a professional society of the IEEE.
IEEE 802.11b-1999 or 802.11b is an amendment to the IEEE 802.11 wireless networking specification that extends throughput up to 11 Mbit/s using the same 2.4 GHz band. A related amendment was incorporated into the IEEE 802.11-2007 standard.
In radio, multiple-input and multiple-output, or MIMO, is a method for multiplying the capacity of a radio link using multiple transmission and receiving antennas to exploit multipath propagation. MIMO has become an essential element of wireless communication standards including IEEE 802.11n, IEEE 802.11ac, HSPA+ (3G), WiMAX, and Long Term Evolution (LTE). More recently, MIMO has been applied to power-line communication for three-wire installations as part of the ITU G.hn standard and of the HomePlug AV2 specification.
Teresa Huai-Ying Meng is a Taiwanese-American academician and entrepreneur. She is the Reid Weaver Dennis Professor of Electrical Engineering, Emerita, at Stanford University, and founder of Atheros Communications, a wireless semiconductor company acquired by Qualcomm, Inc.
Guowang Miao is an associate professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, working on design and optimization of wireless communications and networking and the author of Fundamentals of Mobile Data Networks and Energy and Spectrum Efficient Wireless Network Design.
IEEE 802.11ah is a wireless networking protocol published in 2017 called Wi-Fi HaLow as an amendment of the IEEE 802.11-2007 wireless networking standard. It uses 900 MHz license-exempt bands to provide extended-range Wi-Fi networks, compared to conventional Wi-Fi networks operating in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. It also benefits from lower energy consumption, allowing the creation of large groups of stations or sensors that cooperate to share signals, supporting the concept of the Internet of things (IoT). The protocol's low power consumption competes with Bluetooth and has the added benefit of higher data rates and wider coverage range.
Xi Zhang is a Full Professor and the Founding Director of the Networking and Information Systems Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University. He is a Fellow of the IEEE for contributions to quality of service (QoS) in mobile wireless networks. His research interests include statistical delay-bounded QoS provisioning for multimedia mobile wireless networks, edge computing, finite blocklength coding theory, in-network caching, and offloading over 5G mobile wireless networks.
Neelesh B. Mehta is an Indian communications engineer, inventor and a professor at the Department of Electrical and Communications Engineering of the Indian Institute of Science who studies wireless networks.
In telecommunications, 6G is the sixth generation standard currently under development for wireless communications technologies supporting cellular data networks. It is the planned successor to 5G and will likely be significantly faster. Like its predecessors, 6G networks will probably be broadband cellular networks, in which the service area is divided into small geographical areas called cells. Several companies, as well as several countries, have shown interest in 6G networks.
