Providing Outdoor and Indoor Ubiquity with WLANs
Wireless Local Area Networks are very useful for the most applications based on network. Nowadays, these types of networks are the most powerful in the communication’s world. It can be developed in almost all environments and products are cheap and robust. Moreover, these networks can be formed by different devices with wireless interfaces like IP cameras, laptops, PDAs, sensors, etc. WLANs provide high bandwidth at large coverage areas (if high gain antennas are used), which it is necessary in many applications at different research areas. All these characteristics let WLANs be a useful technology to provide ubiquity for any type of service. If they are deployed from a good and exhaustive design, they can provide connection to any device, everywhere at anytime. In this paper we present a complete guideline about how to design and deploy WLANs and to get their best performance. We start from an analytical point of view and we use mathematical expressions to design WLANs in both indoor and outdoor environments. Then, we show a method proposed by some authors of this paper some years ago and how it can be used to design WLANs in indoor environments. Next, we show WLANs design in outdoor environments. Finally, we describe two projects developed by the authors of this chapter in order to provide ubiquity in real indoor and outdoor environments.