IEEE 802.11ax: An Overview of High-Efficiency Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi 6)

Learn about the latest advancements in Wi-Fi 6, with PHY & MAC layer optimizations, efficiency improvements, and interference management.

  • 0.5 CEU / 5 PDH credits
  • Launched 2023
  • 2 courses
  • 5 hours

Course Description

IEEE Standard 802.11ax is the latest step in a journey of continuous innovation in the wireless local area networks (LAN) standards and is the underlying technology of the latest Wi-Fi 6 products. Unlike previous amendments (e.g., IEEE Std 802.11ac, IEEE Std 802.11n) which were focused mainly on increasing the peak throughput, 802.11ax focuses on achieving Higher Efficiency (HE) and improving metrics that reflect user experience, such as average throughput per station. This was achieved by better physical layer efficiency and spectrum utilization, flexible multi-access and scheduled transmission schemes, increasing the spatial reuse, and improving interference management between neighboring networks, particularly in dense environments.

In this training, learners will gain an overview of the features and optimizations introduced by IEEE 802.11ax to the Physical (PHY) and Medium Access Control (MAC) layers, which lead to these improvements. The first day of the course series will focus on the PHY layer and the second day of the course series will focus on the MAC layer.

Course Objectives

  • Main physical layer (PHY) features introduced in 802.11ax and their benefits
  • Details of 802.11ax PHY numerology and tone plan for each bandwidth
  • The four PHY Protocol Data Unit formats and their usage
  • Important topics in the 802.11ax PHY operation including sounding sequences, preamble puncturing operation, and spatial uses concepts
  • Main Medium Access Control (MAC) features introduced in 802.11ax and their benefits
  • MAC support for downlink and uplink multi-user operation
  • Use of Basic Service Set (BSS) color for differentiating intra-BSS vs inter-BSS PPDUs, two network allocation vector (NAV) operation, spatial reuse modes, and details for multi-user (MU) enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) operation
  • Negotiation and utilization of target wake times (individual and broadcast), operation mode indication
  • Dynamic fragmentation, multi-traffic identifier (TID) aggregation and variable size BlockAck frames
  • Enhancements to active/passive scanning and network operation in the 6 GHz band
  • Extending the range of a BSS, use of transmit opportunity (TXOP)-based Request To Sent (RTS)/Clear To Send (CTS) exchanges

Authors and Instructors

Bin Tian

Senior Director of Technology in Wireless, Qualcomm, Inc.

Bin Tian is a Senior Director of Technology in Wireless R&D at Qualcomm, Inc. He currently leads the Wi-Fi physical layer system team, which is responsible for R&D, prototyping and standardization of Wi-Fi technology and solutions. Since 2012, he has contributed significantly to different generations of IEEE 802.11 standards including 802.11ah (Sub-1GHz), 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6), 802.11ba (wake-up radio), 802.11be (WiFi7), and more. Before 2012, he led and contributed to many R&D projects in Qualcomm on terrestrial and satellite communication systems. He holds around 300 granted or pending US patents. Bin Tian received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering for Colorado State University and holds M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees in EE from Tsinghua University, China.

Alfred Asterjadhi

Systems Engineer in Wireless, Qualcomm, Inc.

Alfred Asterjadhi is a Systems Engineer in Wireless R&D at Qualcomm, Inc. His focus is on the design, standardization, and performance evaluation of MAC protocols in wireless systems with a special emphasis on increasing efficiency, scalability and reducing power consumption in wireless networks. He is the Chair of IEEE 802.11be and has served as the Vice Chair of IEEE 802.11ax, and Vice Chair and Technical Editor of IEEE 802.11ah. He has made significant technical contributions to these amendments in both standardization and certification of Wi-Fi interoperability. He has authored and coauthored multiple conference and journal papers in wireless communications, a book in underwater acoustic networking, and is the holder of several patents in wireless communications. Alfred Asterjadhi received the Ph.D. degree in Information Engineering, the B.Sc. and the M.Sc. degrees in Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Padova, Italy.

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