Strengths And Weaknesses Of Yagi, Horn And Cellular Antennas, Wireless Network Protocols, And Reflection Of Software Defined Wireless Networking

Yagi, Horn and Cellular Antennas

Strengths and Weaknesses of Yagi, Horn and Cellular Antennas

1. i) Yagi Antenna: Yagi antenna is a specific directional antenna that comprises of several parallel elements within a single line, generally half wave dipoles built from metal rods. This type of antenna consists of a single-driven element that is eventually connected to a receiver or transmitter with any transmission line (Rangan, Rappaport & Erkip, 2014). The parasitic elements are not linked with the receiver or transmitter and these are known as reflectors. This particular reflector element is a little longer than the respective driven dipole; however the directors of this antenna are shorter. Yagi antenna is broadly utilized as the high gain antenna either on the HF, VHF or UHF bands.

The strengths of Yagi antenna are as follows:

1. a) Compact Size: The most important advantage of this antenna is that the size of Yag is compact in nature and it is much lighter in weight (Li et al., 2017).
2. b) Wide Bandwidth: Yagi antenna provides much wide bandwidth since folded dipoles are used.
3. c) Unidirectional Radiation: The radiation pattern of this antenna is unidirectional.
4. d) Cost Effective: Yagi antenna is cost effective in nature and hence could be afforded by all.

The weaknesses of Yagi antenna are as follows:

1. a) Lack of High Gain: Yagi antenna does not provide high gain and only provides gain up to 7 dB (Lu et al., 2015).
2. b) Frequency Sensitiveness: This antenna is sensitive to the frequency and the design is also obstructive.
3. ii) Horn Antenna: This type of antenna comprises of flaring metal waveguides that are shaped like any particular horn for directing the radio waves within a beam. The horns are broadly utilized as the antennas at ultra high frequency as well as microwave frequency, above 300 MHz (Ba?tu?, Bennis & Debbah, 2014). The horn antennas are utilized as feed horns or feed antennas for parabolic antennas. The bandwidth of this antenna ranges from 0.8 to 18n GHz.

The strengths of horn antenna are as follows:

1. a) Simplified Construction: The entire structure of this type of antenna is extremely simple.
2. b) Directivity: Horn antenna is responsible for delivering sufficient directivity.
3. c) Wide Bandwidth: The bandwidth of horn antenna is around 10% and hence is much wide (Hossain et al., 2014).
4. d) High Gain: Due to the parabolic reflector discs, horn antenna could easily deliver high gain.

The weaknesses of horn antenna are as follows:

1. a) Lack of Directive Beam: Since this type of antenna radiates the energy in the front shape of spherical wave, sharp or directive beam is provided by it.
2. b) Huge Length: As the gain is restricted to not more 20 dB; the gain, when increases, in turn increments the horn length to huge (ElSawy, Hossain & Haenggi, 2013).

iii) Cellular Antenna: The cellular antenna is the type of network, in which the final link is absolutely wireless. This network is then distributed over the land areas, known as cells and each of them is served by one transceiver. The transceiver has one fixed location and does not comprise of three base stations (Ghosh et al, 2014). The most popular wireless networks or cellular antennas are GSM, LTE and CDMA. Cellular antennas are majorly utilized as mobile phone networks.

The strengths of cellular antennas are as follows:

1. a) Voice or Data Services: Cellular antenna provides voice or data services in roaming.
2. b) Easy Maintenance: This type of antenna is extremely easier for maintenance.
3. c) Simple Up Gradation: Cellular antenna could be upgraded easily without ay complexity (Mukherjee et al., 2014).
4. d) Connection to Wireless Telephones: The fixed and the wireless telephones could be easily connected by cellular antenna.

The weaknesses of cellular antennas are as follows:

1. a) Offers Limited Data: This type of antenna offers limited data to the users in comparison to the wired networks.
2. b) High Cost: In some cases, cellular networks are extremely costly and it becomes a major problem to afford this (Shi, Beard & Mitchell, 2013).

The dominant player in future of medium and long distance wireless link is New Digital Antenna. This type of antenna is extremely cost effective and even the antenna bandwidth is extensible. Hence, could be utilized by everyone and it has the chance for surpassing the remaining antennas.

Three Different Wireless Network Protocols with Strengths and Weaknesses

The three different wireless network protocols that are extremely popular in today’s world are as follows:

1. i) LTE: The LTE or Long Term Evolution is the significant standard for the high speed wireless communications that are utilized in the data terminals and mobile devices on the basis of GSM and EDGE technologies. This LTE eventually increases the speed as well as capacity with the help of a separate radio interface with major improvements in network (Sarkar, Basavaraju & Puttamadappa, 2016). LTE was developed by 3^rdGeneration Partnership Project or 3GPP and is the significant upgraded path to GSM or UMTS networks. Recently Advanced 4G or 4G LTE has come into account and thus could be utilized within various countries by multi band phones.

The strengths of LTE are as follows:

1. a) Data and Voice Services: LTE network protocols allows data and voice services and thus packet switching operations are possible.
2. b) High Data Transmission Rate: The rate of data transmission is much higher than the usual network protocols and hence is used by all (Chin, Fan & Haines, 2014).
3. c) Lower Time Consumption: The overall time consumption is extremely low and thus is extremely popular.
4. d) Lower Latency: The latency of this network protocol is extremely lower than the other protocols.

The weaknesses of LTE are as follows:

1. a) Higher Costs: LTE is extremely costly since it provides the maximum speed.
2. b) Extremely Complex: The second weakness of LTE is that the entire architecture is extremely complicated and hence the maintenance is tough.

There are some of the major security issues in LTE. The most significant security issue is the authentication and authorization. For this purpose, they have implemented ciphering algorithms within the architecture of the network, so that the attacks cannot decipher the sensitive data (Zou, Wang & Shen, 2013). The next issue is the insecure AKA key. For this purpose, they have implemented EAP AKA within the infrastructure.

1. ii) Wireless Fidelity: WiFi or wireless fidelity is the significant technology for the wireless LAN of several devices on the basis on IEEE 802.11 standard. The testing of interoperability is done in this network protocol. The few devices that could utilize the technology of wireless fidelity mainly include laptops, desktops, smart TVs, tablets, smart phones and many more (Hossain et al., 2014). These types of technologies are significantly connected to the Internet connectivity with the help of wireless local area network or wireless access point.

The strengths of WiFi are as follows:

1. a) Easy to Access: The accessibility of this particular network protocol is extremely easier and could be accessed by everyone.
2. b) Easy Installation: Installing a WiFi connection is extremely easy and thus is widely used in offices and schools.
3. c) Fast Data Transmission: The data transmission is extremely faster here than any other network protocol (Lu et al., 2015).
4. d) Cost Effective: WiFi is highly cost effective in nature and hence could be easily used by everyone.

The weaknesses of WiFi are as follows:

1. a) Lack of Security: WiFi does not provide enough security to the users and hence often data is lost.
2. b) Requirement of Additional Software: Before installing WiFi, an additional software is to be implemented and without this software, it is not possible to use WiFi (Rangan, Rappaport & Erkip, 2014).

The main security issue of WiFi is that data is often lost or stolen by attackers. For avoiding this issue, a password is provided to every user and hence when the password is changed periodically, this particular issue is resolved.

iii) Bluetooth: This is the third type of wireless networking protocol that helps to exchange data within a shorter distance. The wavelength range of this particular protocol is from 2.4 GHz to 2.485 GHz (ElSawy, Hossain & Haenggi, 2013). The physical range of Bluetooth technology ranges between 10m to 100m and speed is quite high.

Three Different Wireless Network Protocols with Strengths and Weaknesses

The strengths of Bluetooth are as follows:

1. a) Lower Power Consumption: The overall consumption of power is lower than the other network protocol.
2. b) Quick Connection: The connectivity is much quicker than any other network protocol and thus is much popular.
3. c) Cost Effective: The expenses of this network technology is less and hence could be afforded by everyone easily (Mukherjee et al., 2014).
4. d) Less Interference: Bluetooth has less interference for the FHSS technique.

The weaknesses of Bluetooth are as follows:

1. a) Lack of Security: Bluetooth does not provide enough security to the users and hence often data is lost.
2. b) Low Bandwidth: The total bandwidth is much lower than the other protocols.

The security of Bluetooth is no high and thus the attackers can easily exploit the data for wrong deeds (Shi, Beard & Mitchell, 2013). For this purpose, it is advisable to not to use this technology for any type of personal or confidential data.

Reflection of Paper 1: “An Architecture for Software Defined Wireless Networking”

SDN or software defined networking is the specific approach, which facilitates the network management for enabling efficient network configuration and improving networking monitoring and performance. This type of networking addresses the static architecture and hence network intelligence is centralized (Bernardos et al., 2014). The disassociation of forward process of the network packets or data plane is done from the process of routing or control plane. The data plane as well as control plane is separated by wired networking. Hence, with the help of SDN, the respective network operators could eventually run the infrastructures more effectively and efficiently. The fast deployment of the new services is supported after enabling the key features like virtualization.

An SDN like approach is being applied to the wireless mobile network, which does not provide similar features as the wired networks. This approach even brings leverage over the specific characteristics of the mobile deployments for pushing improvements. An SDN reference architecture is given in the article that describes that the intelligence is centralized within the software based controllers and is capable to control the devices (Bernardos et al., 2014). The protocol of CAPWAP subsequently centralizes the management of wireless network. The next architecture is SDWN, which provides proper interfaces for the functions of control plane, thus enabling flexibility to the traffic handling in user plane. Therefore, these two proposed architectures are extremely vital for the mobile network technology.

Reflection of Paper 2: “Software Defined Wireless Networks: A Survey of Issues and Solutions”

The entire architecture of SDN aims in making the wireless networks flexible as well as agile. The overall network control is improvised by simply enabling the service providers or enterprises in responding quickly to change the respective requirements. The centralized controller of SDN eventually directs the switches for delivering several network services, whenever required, even if there is no connection within device and server (Rangisetti & Tamma, 2017). The wireless networks like the mobile networks comprise of an inflexible infrastructure of network and hence often face several challenges for handling the traffic demands. Therefore, the MNO or mobile network operator simplifies the network control and management for faster deployment of solutions on the existing hardware.

Reflection of Paper 1: “An Architecture for Software Defined Wireless Networking”

SDN can easily make the network more flexible and agile by separating tasks of control plane and data plane. The mobile network service of LTE is thus deployed by the major network services. The network function virtualization or NFV helps to handle the control signal efficiently and thus the traffic demands are controlled (Rangisetti & Tamma, 2017). Moreover, the SDN and NFV offer flexible, adaptable or scalable network service platform as the replacement for the inflexible middle box. Moreover, MEC or mobile edge computing platform brings cloud computing as well as IT services to offer network solutions for the users. Some of the significant issues like handover and frequency issues are described in this article and relevant solutions are provided here.

References

Ba?tu?, E., Bennis, M., & Debbah, M. (2014). Living on the edge: The role of proactive caching in 5G wireless networks. arXiv preprint arXiv:1405.5974.

Bernardos, C. J., De La Oliva, A., Serrano, P., Banchs, A., Contreras, L. M., Jin, H., & Zúñiga, J. C. (2014). An architecture for software defined wireless networking. IEEE wireless communications, 21(3), 52-61.

Chin, W. H., Fan, Z., & Haines, R. (2014). Emerging technologies and research challenges for 5G wireless networks. IEEE Wireless Communications, 21(2), 106-112.

ElSawy, H., Hossain, E., & Haenggi, M. (2013). Stochastic geometry for modeling, analysis, and design of multi-tier and cognitive cellular wireless networks: A survey. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 15(3), 996-1019.

Ghosh, A., Thomas, T. A., Cudak, M. C., Ratasuk, R., Moorut, P., Vook, F. W., … & Nie, S. (2014). Millimeter-wave enhanced local area systems: A high-data-rate approach for future wireless networks. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 32(6), 1152-1163.

Hossain, E., Rasti, M., Tabassum, H., & Abdelnasser, A. (2014). Evolution toward 5G multi-tier cellular wireless networks: An interference management perspective. IEEE Wireless Communications, 21(3), 118-127.

Li, X., Li, D., Wan, J., Vasilakos, A. V., Lai, C. F., & Wang, S. (2017). A review of industrial wireless networks in the context of industry 4.0. Wireless networks, 23(1), 23-41.

Lu, X., Wang, P., Niyato, D., Kim, D. I., & Han, Z. (2015). Wireless networks with RF energy harvesting: A contemporary survey. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 17(2), 757-789.

Mukherjee, A., Fakoorian, S. A. A., Huang, J., & Swindlehurst, A. L. (2014). Principles of physical layer security in multiuser wireless networks: A survey. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 16(3), 1550-1573.

Rangan, S., Rappaport, T. S., & Erkip, E. (2014). Millimeter-wave cellular wireless networks: Potentials and challenges. Proceedings of the IEEE, 102(3), 366-385.

Rangisetti, A. K., & Tamma, B. R. (2017). Software Defined Wireless Networks: A Survey of Issues and Solutions. Wireless Personal Communications, 97(4), 6019-6053.

Sarkar, S. K., Basavaraju, T. G., & Puttamadappa, C. (2016). Ad hoc mobile wireless networks: principles, protocols, and applications. CRC Press.

Shi, Z., Beard, C., & Mitchell, K. (2013). Analytical models for understanding space, backoff, and flow correlation in CSMA wireless networks. Wireless networks, 19(3), 393-409.

Zou, Y., Wang, X., & Shen, W. (2013). Optimal relay selection for physical-layer security in cooperative wireless networks. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 31(10), 2099-2111.