Abstract
The IEEE802.11n standard will enable a new class of consumer and enterprise products utilizing wireless LAN connectivity that is ten times faster than is feasible with the current IEEE802.11a/b/g standards. This tutorial will provide a comprehensive overview of the Physical Layer (PHY) technology in the p802.11n draft standard. The course will begin with an overview of the applications, environments, channel models, use cases, and usage models developed by the study group and task group which provided the framework for proposal development. We continue with a history of the various coalitions that ultimately led to the final joint proposal adopted as the draft standard. The technical description of the draft standard starts with a detailed discussion of the key throughput enhancing features: multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) / space division multiplexing (SDM) in the PHY. Further throughput enhancements in the PHY include 40 MHz channelization, reduced guard interval, tone filling, high rate coding, and efficient (greenfield) preambles. Additional topics include PHY interoperability techniques such as the mixed mode preamble, legacy spoofing, and auto-preamble detection. An overview will be provided of the robustness enhancements in the PHY. The PHY techniques include spatial spreading, receive diversity, transmit beamforming, space-time block code (STBC), and low density parity check (LDPC) codes.

Educational Course Subject Areas
Communications

Keywords
adjacent channel interference ,  analog digital converter ,  automated gain controller ,  additive white Gaussian noise ,  binary convolutional code ,  comparison criteria ,  co-channel interference ,  consumer electronics ,  cyclic shift diversity ,  European telecommunications standards institute ,  error vector magnitude ,  functional requirements ,  Greenfield ,  guard interval ,  high throughput ,  inphase quadrature ,  low density parity check ,  local oscillator ,  line of sight ,  long training field ,  long training symbol ,  medium access control layer ,  modulation coding scheme ,  multiple input multiple output ,  minimum mean square error ,  maximal ratio combining ,  non line of sight ,  orthogonal frequency division multiplexing ,  peak to average power ratio ,  project authorization request ,  physical layer ,  packet loss rate ,  root mean square ,  receiver ,  service access point ,  spatial division multiplexing ,  signal field ,  single input single output ,  signal to noise ratio ,  station ,  space time block code ,  short training field ,  singular value decomposition ,  transmitter ,  transmit beamforming ,  task group ,  unlicensed national information infrastructure ,  wireless local area network ,  zero forcing