IEEE 802.11 WLAN load balancing using adaptive antennas and cooperative controls

This paper extends our recent researches on using intelligent agents to improve 802.11 WLAN systems performance. Agent-controlled semi-smart antennas and multi-agent systems are proposed. The use of agent negotiation and cooperatively change antennas' radiation patterns can significantly improve overall data rates for WLAN users, especially for geographically non-uniform distributed users (so called "hot spot" traffic). Distributed agents can negotiate with each other resulting mutual changing radio patterns to re-balance traffic at hot spot area. The simulation has taken multi-path effects into consideration, as most WLAN systems are deployed in in-door environment. Simulation results show significant overall system performance improvement over traditional configurations. A network planning tool is used to create path loss models based on building structures and floor plans. The design and building of prototype semi-smart antennas and their control units are also discussed.