Software-Defined Radio Receiver for IEEE 802.11n

Abstract: This thesis studies the physical layer (PHY layer) of the IEEE 802.11n wireless local area network (WLAN) standard. The possibility of integrating a receiver designed according to the standard with software-defined radios is investigated. The proposed design was implemented in MATLAB and tested using two softwaredefined radios. One of the radios transmitted IEEE 802.11n signals whilst the other one captured them and sent them to a computer for decoding. In this way, evaluation of the proposed receiver design was done. The tests resulted in successfully decoded WLAN packets, although errors occured regularly due to distortions in the air. The proposed MATLAB design can be developed further, with more features, for future tests and research.