The primary aim of the thesis was to automate Wi-Fi coverage testing, using various automation techniques. The thesis and research were conducted during the author's internship job at Plume Design d.o.o. Besides various technical products available for developing the thesis and research, the author also had a space self-positioning robot on disposal which contributed the most in the process of automation.
In addition we wanted to show that the author's automated system is working properly by running some test cycles which include throughput measurements for three different products. We were curious what a new approach in Wi-Fi technology, developed and implemented by the Plume Wi-Fi company, is capable of, compared to the other solutions, based on a standard single infrastructure mode or Mesh system.
After the introduction into the topic, the second part is about some fundamentals of Wi-Fi technology including Wi-Fi standards, channels allocation, bandwidth, operation modes, that were outlined. The following chapter includes an explanation of both, currently standard Wi-Fi solutions for providing Wi-Fi networks access and a new Adaptive Wi-Fi product with its advanced technological approach.
In the forth chapter, the testing environment, equipment, tools and coding concepts were presented. The detailed procedure of doing coverage tests and measuring throughput, together with the coding solutions for the automation, were described in the same chapter. It also contains the results of comparing coverage tests between Plume Wi-Fi and two competitive products.
Since the automated system for coverage tests has been fully adopted and confirmed by the company, it can be concluded that the practical part of the thesis achieved its purpose. The comparison results, showed that the new techniques, used in the Plume routers, are giving slightly better results than the alternative Wi-Fi solutions. Limitations in hardware and insufficiently large testing area constrained Plume in getting even better results.
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