Antennas And Wireless Networks: Understanding The Technologies And Protocols

Yagi, Horn, and Cellular Antennas

Antennas can be classified into various categories, this section of the report is associated with discussing about the three major type of antennas.

Sntenna is generally considered to be the directional antenna which consists of various elements within a single line, and this generally involves the half wave dipoles that are made up of metal rods. A single-driven element is present in this type of antenna which are connected to the receiver or transmitter with any transmission line. The receiver or the transmitter are generally not linked up with the parasitic elements which are generally termed as the reflectors (Zhu, Wang, & Hong, 2015). The size of the reflector is generally longer than the driven dipole whereas it is observed that the directions of this kind of antenna are shorter.

The major strengths of Yagi antenna have been listed below:

1. a) Compact Size: This is one major advantage of this type of antenna as the size is totally compact and light in weight.
2. b) Wide Bandwidth: The use of folded dipole makes the Yagi antenna capable of providing a wider bandwidth.
3. c) Unidirectional Radiation: having a unidirectional pattern of radiation (Nedyalkov, Stefanov, & Georgiev, 2018).
4. d) Cost Effective: The Yagi antenna is having a cost effective nature which makes it affordable by all.

The major weaknesses of Yagi antenna have been listed below:

1. a) Lack of High Gain: High gain is not provided by the Yagi antenna as this is associated with providing a gain up to 7 dB.
2. b) Frequency Sensitiveness: The sensitivity of the Yagi antenna to the frequency is high and along with this the design of this antenna is also obstructive (Christodoulou et al., 2015).
3. Horn Antenna:Horn antenna generally consists of a flaring metal waveguides. This waveguides are shaped like a horn in order to direct the radio waves within a beam. The utilization of the horns are broadly seen at the ultra-high frequency and also in the microwave frequency which are above 300 MHz. This type of antennas are generally used as feed horns or feed antennas by the parabolic antennas.

The major strengths of horn antenna have been listed below:

1. a) Simplified Construction: The simple structure of the antenna acts as one of the major advantage while operating.
2. b) Directivity: This type of antennas are associated with providing a sufficient amount directivity.
3. c) Wide Bandwidth: The Horn antennas are having a 10% bandwidth which is considered to be much wider (Lin, Darshni, & Jamnejad, 2018).
4. d) High Gain: The presence of the parabolic reflector discs makes the horn antenna capable of easy delivery of high gain.

The major weaknesses of horn antenna have been listed below:

1. a) Lack of Directive Beam: due to the reason that the horn antenna are associated with the radiation of the energy in the front shape of spherical wave, sharp or directive beam is provided by it.
2. b) Huge Length: The gain of this antenna is restricted to not more 20 dB so whenever the gain increases then it would be associated with incrementing the length of the horn to huge (Fradin, 2017).
3. Cellular Antenna:This is type of network where the final link is absolutely wireless in nature. After this the network would be distributed all over the land areas, and this is termed as cells. Each and every cells are served by a specific transceiver (Rezaeieh, Antoniades, & Abbosh, 2017). This transceiver are having a fixed location along with which the three base stations are also absent.

The major strengths of cellular antennas have been listed below:

1. a) Voice or Data Services: In roaming state this type of antennas are associated with providing voice and data services.
2. b) Easy Maintenance: can be maintained very easily.
3. c) Simple up Gradation: the upgrading of this antennas can be done without any kind of complexity
4. d) Connection to Wireless Telephones: Connecting the fixed and the wireless telephones is easy (Barbuto et al., 2015).

The major weaknesses of cellular antennas have been listed below:

1. a) Offers Limited Data: In comparison to the wired network this type of antennas are associated with providing a limited amount of data service.
2. b) High Cost: Costs sometimes seem to be very high which initially makes it difficult to adopt this.

From the above comparison it can be considered that the most dominant player of future for the medium and long distance wireless link is New Digital Antenna. The main reason for considering this is that this type of antennas are extremely cost effective in nature along with which the bandwidth of this antennas can also be extended. For this reason this type of antennas can also be utilized by everyone.

There are various kind of wireless network protocols and in this section we would be discussing about the three major network protocols that are being used in today’s world:

1. LTE:The full form of  LTE is Long Term Evolution is considered to one of the high standard protocol that is generally used for the purpose of high speed wireless communication, this is generally used by the data terminals and the mobile devices which are dependent upon the technologies like the EDGE and the GSM. The LTE is associated with increasing the speed along with the capacity by taking assistance form the radio interfaces placed separately which would initially helping in making the major improvements in the network (Ramaccia et al., 2015). This LTE technology was developed by the 3GPP of the 3^rd Generation Partnership Protocol and this protocol is generally considered to be an important upgrade of the GSM and UTMS networks,

The major strengths of LTE have been listed below:

1. a) Data and Voice Services: LTE network protocol is associated with allowing providing services like data and voice services which in turn is responsible for operations related to packet switching.
2. b) High Data Transmission Rate: The data transmission rate is higher than any kind of usual network protocols due to which this protocol is used by everyone.
3. c) Lower Time Consumption: The time consumed for conducting the various processes is low and for this reason it is very popular (Loo, Mauri, & Ortiz, 2016).
4. d) Lower Latency: It is observed that the overall network latency is very low than any other network protocol.

The weakness of the LTE protocol have been listed below:

1. a) Higher Costs: It is observed that the LTE protocol is having extreme high cost as high speed of transmission is provided by this protocol.
2. b) Extremely Complex: Another major weakness of the LTE protocol is that it is very complicated which is eventually responsible for making the process of maintenance very much complex.

Along with the above discussed complexities there also exists some other major security issues which includes the authentication and authorization (Ramaccia et al., 2015). In order to avoid this issues the ciphering algorithm has been implemented within the architecture so as to make sure that there does not exists any kind of decipher of the data which are sensitive in nature (Wang et al., 2014).

Wireless Fidelity:This is another important network protocol which is also known as the Wi-Fi that acts as a significant technology used by the wireless LAN of different kind of devices by making use of the IEEE 802.11 standard. Besides this the network protocol is associated with the testing of interoperability. Some other technologies that are associated with usage of the wireless fidelity includes the laptops, desktops and many more (Pothuganti & Chitneni, 2014). The technologies are generally connected with the Internet by making use of the LAN or the WAN.

The major strengths of the Wi-Fi includes the following:

1. a) Easy to Access: It is easy to access this particular network protocol and can be accessed by anyone who is authorized to use it.
2. b) Easy Installation: The installation of the Wi-Fi connection is a very easy process which can be used by almost every organization.
3. c) Fast Data Transmission: The transmission speed of data is extremely fast than any other network protocol
4. d) Cost Effective: Wi-Fi is very cost effective which makes it possible to be used by everyone.

The weaknesses of Wi-Fi have been listed below:

1. a) Lack of Security: In the Wi-Fi there does not exists enough security for the users which often results in loss of data (Ledbetter et al., 2018).
2. b) Requirement of Additional Software: There is a need of installing an additional software so as to use the Wi-Fi once it is implemented.

One of the major security issue faced by the Wi-Fi protocol is that the data is often lost or stolen by the attackers. This issue can be resolved by making use of a password which is to be provided to every user and should be changed periodically.

1. Bluetooth:The third and one of the most popular wireless protocol is the Bluetooth which is associated with helping in the exchanging of the data at a shorter distance. The range of wavelength for this particular protocol is extremely low that is around 2.4 GHz to 2,485 GHz.

LTE

The major strengths of Bluetooth protocol have been listed below:

1. a) Lower Power Consumption:the power consumed by this much lower as considered to the other network protocols.
2. b) Quick Connection:the speed of connectivity is also faster than any other network protocol which initially makes it one of the famous networking protocol (Nabi, Basten, & Geilen, 2015).
3. c) Cost Effective:the cost required for maintaining this protocol is very low which initially makes it affordable to everyone.

The weaknesses of Bluetooth protocol have been listed below:

1. a) Lack of Security:This technology is not associated with providing enough amount of security which often results in the loss of data.
2. b) Low Bandwidth:The bandwidth that is required by this protocol so as to operate is much lower than the other protocols (Nabi, Basten, & Geilen, 2015).

Software defined networking or the SDN can be defined as a specific approach which is associated with the facilitating the process of managing the network which in turn is associated with the enabling of the configuration of the network efficiently. Besides this the approach is also associated with improving the process of monitoring and performance as well. The static architecture is generally addressed by this type of networking which helps in understanding the fact that this type of networking is having a centralized intelligence. The routing process or the control panels are responsible for the disassociation of the forward process of the network packets or the data plane. The wired networking is associated with separating the data plane and the control panel. Taking help from the SDN it is possible for the network operators to run the entire infrastructure in an efficient and effective way. Key features like the virtualization is used for the purpose of deployment of the new services at a faster rate.

The features provided by the SDN approach is entirely different from the features provided by eth wired networks. Besides this the approach is also associated with leveraging certain characteristics of the mobile deployment in order to obtain further improvements. This article is associated with providing an reference architecture which helps in understanding the fact that the software based controllers are having a centralized intelligence which are capable of controlling the devices. The CAPWAP’s protocol is associated with centralizing the management of the wireless network subsequently. Followed by this the report discusses about the SDWN architecture which is associated with providing a proper interface that are required for functioning of the control panel which in turn is associated with enabling of the flexibility required to handle the traffic in the user panel. From this it can be understood that the two architectures that has been proposed in the article is very vital for the mobile network technology.

The architecture of the SDN is designed in such a way that the wireless network which is created, would be flexible and agile in nature. Improvements in the entire network control can be done by making the service providers become capable of responding to the changes taking place in the requirements as soon as possible. Directions to the switches are provided by the centralized controller present in the SDN so as to deliver the different kind of network related services whenever it is needed even if there does not exists any type of communication within the server or the devices. Wireless networks such as the mobile networks are consisting of an inflexible network infrastructure and for this reason it is often observed that there arises various kind of problems when the demand of traffic increase.

The article helps in identifying the fact that the SDN are capable of making the network more agile and flexible and this is mainly done by separation of the tasks that the control panel and the data plane is having. For this reason the mobile network service known as the LTE have been deployed by most of the network service providers. The NFV or the Network Function Virtualization is associated with providing assistance for handling of the control signal in an efficient way which eventually results in the controlling of the traffic demands. Along with this the SDN as well as the NFV is associated with offering a flexible, adaptable as well as scalable network service platform which acts as a replacement of the inflexible middle box. In addition to this the MEC or the Mobile Edge Computing platform is associated with bringing the cloud computing along with the IT services so as to offer various kind of network related solutions to the users who would be suing it. The article also describes the issues that are faced by the network like the handover and issues related to the frequency have been provided along with relevant solutions to all this kind of issues.

References:

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