An Emperical Evaluation of the Received Signal Strength Indicator for fixed outdoor 802.11 links

Inhalt:
For the evaluation of the received signal strength indication (RSSI) a different methodology compared to previous publications is introduced in this paper by exploiting a spectral scan feature of recent Qualcomm Atheros WiFi NICs. This method is compared to driver reports and to an industrial grade spectrum analyzer. During the conducted outdoor experiments a decreased scattering of the RSSI compared to previous publications is observed. By applying well-known mathematical tests for normality it is possible to show that the RSSI does not follow a normal distribution in a line-of-sight outdoor environment. The evaluated spectral scan features offers additional possibilities to develop interference classifiers which is an important step for frequency allocation in long-distance 802.11 networks.