Wireless systems Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Wireless systems - Research Paper Example In last couples of decade’s wireless communications, systems along with their applications and underlying technologies are among the most active area of development and enjoy the fastest growth in history. The rapid development in this regards has turned the world into a global village (Prassad, and Ruggieri 2). Basic Building Blocks/Components of Wireless Systems Since wireless communication involves number of technologies and their applications hence similar to wired communication there exist a wide range of equipment’s (both at transmitter and receiver ends) to execute communication task by propagating light or radio waves through a medium. However in border sense a wireless system consists of following primary network components. a) Users- The users of a wireless system can be anything including human beings. The users can be mobile or stationary. The basic function of a user is to initiate and terminate the use of a wireless network, making the term end-user approp riate. b) Client- The second major primary component of a wireless network is a computer device designed according to specific need, generally termed as a client. A client works on certain operating systems like as Windows XP, LINUX, or MAC OS etc. Similar to a user a client can be mobile or stationary. For mobile support applications, client devices are generally small and handy (fig.1) with display and keyboard along with a battery power backup (Geier 37). Fig.1 Wireless Devices c) Network Interface Card- Network interface card (NIC) provides an interface between a network device and a wireless network. Depending on requirements, NIC can be a part of a client or as external network adaptor as shown in fig.2. Wireless NICs are designed to meet certain form factors like Industry-Standard Architecture (ISA), Fig. 2 NICs Peripheral Component certain form factors like Industry-Standard Architecture (ISA), Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) and PC Card etc. These factors actually d efine the physical and electrical bus interface that enables the card to act as a bridge to carry communication between a computer device and wireless network (Geier 38). d) Medium- A wireless system uses a medium like air to propagate its signals (radio or light waves) from sender to receiver. Various modulation schemes like amplitude modulation (AM), frequency modulation (FM) and phase modulation (PM) are used to propagate the signal over long distances (Kennedy, and Davis 3). Wireless Systems The development of various wireless systems is a wide area of present day research. Following is a brief overview of current wireless systems. a) Cellular- Cellular wireless communication comprising 1G (AMPS, IS-41, ETACS) 2G (USDC-IS136, GSM, CDMA-IS-95), 2.5G (CDPD, GPRS, EDGE, CDMA1-IS-95B), 3G (TDS-CDMA, CDMA2000 1X, 2X) and futuristically the 4G networks is the major contributor of wireless cellular systems (Li 19). b) Private Mobile Radio- The private mobile radio (PMR) is another impo rtant category of wireless systems. Analog, digital, mesh and emerging technologies including cognitive radio and software defined radio (SDR) are important categories of private mobile wireless