Abstract
WLAN (Wireless local area network ), also known as Wi-Fi has gained lots of attention during the past two decades due to its promising capabilities, ease of installation and low-cost of access points (APs), which offers substantial economic benefits. WLAN is a dynamic, flexible replacement of wired local area networks. It is already implemented in most of the devices nowadays. For instance, laptops, smartphones, smart TV’s, computers, and the internet of things devices(IOT). Moreover, WLAN is the primary connection method to the internet for more than 76% of North-American households. Although power control algorithms have been considerably studied in the research community, their practical implementation is still primitive. In general, such improvements urge to profound changes in current standards. Toward a solution to succeed, it is necessary to be efficiently implementable over actual hardware and software systems. In this aim, this thesis studies whether new power control methods can be implemented using today’s systems and off-the-shelf wireless cards to enhance spatial reuse, link throughput and reduce packages errors. Through the evaluation of several Atheros cards, we address some issues related to the implementation of power control to accomplish better link quality. Our observations show that several existing wireless Routers do cause more harm to the radio environment due to poor network design.