Integrated Coverage Measurement and Analysis System for Outdoor Coverage WLAN

Abstract: Daily usage of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) in business life for specific purposes has became much more critical than before since it is sometimes crucial to have wireless connectivity and seamless roaming around the working environment. In this thesis, steps required in order to design and implement a large scale outdoor IEEE 802.11g WLAN will be shown. This WLAN project has been deployed in north of Sweden and target coverage was an open area consisting of a deep pit mine, connecting roads, workshops, offices, dumps and storage areas. All telecommunications equipment used in this project is from the manufacturer Cisco using centralized solution. The special purpose of this project is to collect and analyze a series of coverage measurement data and correlate this data to predict the coverage area. Linux bash scripting and Gnuplot has been used to analyze coverage data. Finally, WRAP spectrum management and radio planning software has been used in modeling and designing of the whole network.