Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Alex Chyrkov Belgis Chial Huang Jin Mikael Rapp Saroj Sharma Srikant Narayan Vlad Ioan Bratu
Project Owner:
Bjrn Pehrson
Project Coaches:
Contents
Contents .................................................................................................................................................. 2 Revision History ....................................................................................................................................... 3 1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 4 1.1. 2. Overview of Wi-Fi Point-to-Point Links .................................................................................... 4
Antenna Installation and Alignment ................................................................................................. 5 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5. Antenna Basics ........................................................................................................................ 5 Installation Height .................................................................................................................... 5 Azimuth .................................................................................................................................... 6 Elevation (Tilt) .......................................................................................................................... 8 Polarization .............................................................................................................................. 8
3.
Performance Measurements ........................................................................................................... 9 3.1. 3.2. Measurement Parameters and Test Procedure ...................................................................... 9 The iperf tool .......................................................................................................................... 10
4.
References .................................................................................................................................... 11
Revision History
Version 1.0 1.1 Date September 26 , 2011 November 3 , 2011
rd th
1.
Introduction
Designing point-to-point wireless links poses many challenges, starting with finding a line of sight (LOS) between the considered end points, determining the reliability of the link and fade margin needed, to the physical installation of the equipment. While planning software combined with a path survey will give the necessary information regarding antenna placement and height, expected reliability and performance, only proper physical installation of the equipment will ensure that the performance will be as predicted. Some key aspects to consider when installing a point-to-point wireless link are providing the necessary electrical energy to supply the equipment, aligning the antennas and installing proper grounding and lighting protection. After installation, measurements have to be made, such as throughput, latency, loss or jitter in order to verify that the link is performing as expected.
2.
Figure 1: Example of radiation pattern of a 25 dBi antenna from Ubiquity NanoBridge M5 As it can be seen in the above image, high gain antennas have a narrow beam width and for that reason antenna alignment plays a major role in the performance of point to point links Beside height, there are three adjustments that are usually made for aligning an antenna: azimuth, elevation and polarization.
The most straightforward option is using a GPS receiver and placing it on the antenna to measure the height. Another options is to use the height of a person that is standing beside the mast or tower as a measure and count how many measures will be needed to reach the antenna When possible, a ruler can be used to estimate the height. The first step is standing at a measured distance from the structure the antenna is mounted on and placing the ruler at eye level as in the image bellow. The antenna height is given by the formula: h2 = h1*(d1/d2)
2.3. Azimuth
The azimuth represents the orientation of the antenna in the horizontal plane, measured in degrees in a clockwise direction, with North representing 0 degrees, East 90 degrees, South 180 degrees and West 270 degrees. The value of the azimuth is usually determined using planning software, especially for long distance links where the end point cannot be viewed through a binocular. There are two steps involved when doing the azimuth alignment. First there is the coarse-tuning which involves adjusting the azimuth roughly in the required direction in order to have sufficient signal for fine tuning. Once there is some level of received signal strength the antenna can be fine tuned so that the signal strength will be maximized. Coarse tuning or pre-alignment can be done in different ways, depending on the conditions. If the link is relatively short and the weather is clear, binoculars can be used to view the distant endpoint. The binoculars should be placed on the top edge of the antenna and the azimuth adjusted until the distant antenna is centered as viewed through the binoculars.
Figure 3: Antenna top-view In the case that the link distance is long and the distant end-point cannot be seen, a compass must be used for azimuth pre-alignment. However, in order to use the compass method, azimuth information must be obtained first from a link simulation program. The compass should have indications for azimuth, in degrees and also a sight and a mirror, in order to view objects while looking at the compass indication in a mirror.
Fig.4: Sighting compass When using a compass, the angle between the magnetic north (the one shown by the compass) and the true north must be taken into account. This angle, known as magnetic declination [3] can be determined from maps and also from online tools [4]. Another issue to consider is the fact that magnetic compasses are influenced by large metallic structures such as towers and can give inaccurate readings. During our long-haul Wi-Fi experiment, we have been using the end point coordinates received from GPS on a smartphone and GPS software which showed the direction pointed by the phone in real time. We consider this to be a simple and reliable method suitable for most cases, as the phone is not affected by magnetic declination, metallic objects etc. Another measure that aided us in aligning the antennas when it was already dark was using powerful flashlights and lasers. However, even the GPS by itself should be enough. After the pre-alignment is completed, fine adjustments of the azimuth must be made in order to achieve the highest signal strength. This is done by measuring the received signal level (RSL). The tools for RSL measurements are usually provided with the radio units through a management interface, which can be accessed in different ways, such as a HTTP based GUI, Telnet, SSH or Serial Port, depending on the manufacturer of the units.
By observing the RSL the antennas can be finely adjusted in order to obtain the maximum signal level possible, considering the given conditions. One antenna should be kept fixed while the other is adjusted. When the maximum signal is obtained the antenna can be securely fixed in place using the mounting brackets.
Figure 6: Elevation angle, antenna side-view The value of the elevation angle can be determined using planning software, in the same way that the azimuth angle is determined.
2.5. Polarization
Antenna polarization represents the orientation of the electrical field in respect to the Earth surface. There are three major types of polarization, vertical horizontal and circular. Vertical polarization means that the electrical field is perpendicular to the Earth surface while horizontal polarization means that the electrical field is parallel to the Earth surface. In circular polarization the electrical field is radiated both in the horizontal plane and the vertical plane (and all planes in between), in a rotating manner clockwise (right hand circular - RHC) or counterclockwise (left hand circular - LHC). It is important that both antennas in a point to point link use the same polarization, because a misalignment in polarization will severely degrade signal strength and make communication impossible. Polarization should be adjusted before mounting the antennas on the mast. Most products have the polarization clearly marked on the antenna. Also there is the case when antennas are dual-polarized, such as the Ubiquity NanoBridge M5 which has both vertical and horizontal polarization, thus creating a MIMO system with improved data rates. On reflector antennas, the polarization can be identified by looking at the antenna feed.
3.
Performance Measurements
After installation and antenna alignment, the link should be measured in order to determine the performance. There are a number of parameters that should be accounted when measuring IP network performance. First there is the bandwidth, which will give an indication of the speed of the network and the amount of traffic it can sustain. Secondly, real-time applications such as streaming video or VoIP have performance requirements that include low latency and jitter. Also packet loss rate should be included in a performance analysis [5].
After decompressing the archive navigate tot the iperf folder and run the following commands: ./configure make make install
The iperf utility is now available via the command line. Windows: download or copy iperf.exe in a folder and use the command line to navigate to that folder. Once the path is set to the folder containing iperf the tool is available via the command line. Table 1: useful iperf commands Type of Measurment Bandwidth (TCP Test) Bidirectional Bandwidth Simultaneous Bidirectional Bandwidth Jitter and Packet Loss (UDP Test) Server Side Command Client Side command Observations -f option on the client side will change the output format (default Mb/s). (b) bits, (k) kilobits,(g) gigabits, B(bytes),(K) kilobytes, (M) megabytes, (G) gigabytes.
iperf -s
iperf -s
The server will connect to the client also. iperf -c <server IP> -r Default only the bandwidth from the client to the server is measured iperf -c <server IP> -d
iperf -s
1. -b option should be used on the client side to specify the desired bandwidth. iperf -s -u iperf -c <server IP> -u Example: iperf -c <IP addrr of server> -u -b 10m will allocate 10Mb bandwidth
4.
References
[1] Ermanno Pietrosemoli, Setting Long Distance Wi-Fi Records: Proofing Solutions for Rural Connectivity, The Journal of Community Informatics, Vol. 4 No. 1 (2008) Special Issue: Wireless Networking for Communities, Citizens and the Public Interest [2] M. Zennaro, C. Fonda, E. Pietrosemoli, A.Muyepa S. Okay, R. Flickenger, S.M. Radicella, "On a long wireless link for rural telemedicine in Malawi", 6th Int. Conf. on Open Access, Lilongwe, Nov. 2008 [3] Magnetic Declination, Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_declination [4] Magnetic-Declination Tool Using Google Maps, Available: http://www.magneticdeclination.com/ [5] Geoff Huston, Measuring IP Networks, The Internet Protocol Journal, Vol.6 No.1, March 2003 [6] iperf, Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iperf; http://sourceforge.net/projects/iperf/