Long Range Wi-Fi - Phidgets
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For this project, we aim to answer a simple question: given an ideal environment, how far can you push the range of Wi-Fi connectivity?
To test this, we set out with the goal to control a robot as far away as possible using Wi-Fi to transmit commands from a laptop<br>to a Phidget SBC4.
Before we could start, though, we had to do some research.
Setting Up the Test
Some Definitions
To get a handle on our main question, we need to establish some background. Wireless communications, such as Wi-Fi, rely on transmitting<br>radio waves at a specific frequency in specific patterns. These patterns are then picked up by a receiving antenna, and translated to<br>usable data. In order for the receiver to understand the incoming signal, it must be strong and clear enough to be distinguished from background noise.<br>The power of a transmission decreases with distance from the transmitter, so to increase the range of a given transmission, you can increase the power in the signal.
The power for wireless communications transmissions is specified in terms of watts, and dBm (decibel-milliwatts).<br>The dBm unit is a logarithmic scale, where 0dBm is one milliwatt, and every additional 10dBm is 10 times more power.
Antennas can be used to boost the effective power of a wireless transmission. They do this by focusing the power that would otherwise be dispersed in all<br>directions into a smaller area. The amount the antenna increases signal strength in its focal area is called the gain.<br>The gain of an antenna is specified in in dBi, which stands for decibels over isotropic, and indicates the amount the input signal is boosted in the focal...