Features of Wi-Fi 7
With the advancement of WLAN technology, families and businesses are increasingly relying on Wi-Fi for network connection. Emerging applications have had increased throughput and latency requirements in recent years. 4K and 8K films (with transmission rates up to 20 Gbps), virtual reality (VR)/augmented reality (AR), online gaming, remote offices, online video conferencing, and cloud computing are all examples of these uses. Despite its dedication to improving user experience in high-density situations, Wi-Fi 6, a new Wi-Fi standard that promises to increase speed and reliability, is already falling short due to higher demand. As a result, the IEEE is going to release IEEE 802.11be EHT, also known as Wi-Fi 7, a proposed amendment.
Wi-Fi 7 seeks to boost WLAN capacity to 30 Gbps while still ensuring low-latency access. In order to achieve this, Wi-Fi 7 standard specifies changes to the physical layer (PHY) as well as the MAC layer. Wi-Fi 7 introduces the following technical advancements over Wi-Fi 6:
· Up to 320 MHz Bandwidth:
The 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency ranges are unlicensed and crowded spectrums. Existing Wi-Fi networks invariably have inferior quality of service while running new applications (like VR/AR). Wi-Fi 7 will utilize the frequency band of 6 GHz with the additional bandwidth options, such as contiguous 240 MHz, non-contiguous 160+80 MHz, contiguous 320 MHz, and non-contiguous 160+160 MHz, to attain the maximum throughput of 30 Gbps.
· Higher-Order 4096-QAM:
Wi-Fi 6 supports the highest-order modulation, 1024-QAM, it permits each modulation symbol to convey up to 10 bits. Wi-Fi 7 features 4096-QAM, which allows each modulation signal to contain 12 bits of information. When contrast to 1024-QAM in Wi-Fi 6, 4096-QAM in Wi-Fi 7 can accomplish a 20% rate increase with the same coding.
· Multi-Link Mechanism:
New spectrum management, coordination, and transmission techniques are urgently needed to fully utilize all available spectrum resources on the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz frequency bands. Link aggregation is allowed by the Multi-Link Operation at the MAC layer with a link mapped to a channel and band. It offers better throughput, lower latency, and/or improved stability, all of which are beneficial in a variety of applications ranging from virtual reality to industrial IoT. Some of the benefits of Multi-link operation are following:
§ The highest aggregate data throughput for two lines (e.g., 5 GHz and 6 GHz) might be 7.2 times that of Wi-Fi 6.
§ As multiple links can be used simultaneously, it offers less delays
§ Packet duplication across many links ensures high reliability.
§ According to the app's requirements, assign data flows to specific links.
· More Data Streams and Enhanced MIMO:
The number of spatial streams in Wi-Fi 7 is increased from 8 to 16, resulting in a potential physical transmission rate that would be more than twice that of Wi-Fi 6. Wi-Fi 7 allows distributed MIMO since it has additional data streams. That is, several access points can deliver 16 data streams at the same time, requiring numerous APs to coordinate with one another.
· Multi-AP Coordination:
There isn't much cooperation between APs in the present 802.11 protocol framework. Vendor-defined features include automatic radio calibration and smart roaming, which are common WLAN functionality. To achieve optimal usage and balanced distribution of radio resources, multi-AP coordination strives to optimize channel selection and modify loads between APs. An Inter-cell coordinated planning in the time and frequency domains, inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC), and distributed MIMO are all part of Wi-Fi 7's coordinated scheduling amongst many APs. This lowers AP interference and enhances the utilization of air interface resources significantly. Coordinated orthogonal frequency division multiple access (C-OFDMA), coordinated spatial reuse (CSR), coordinated beamforming (CBF), and cooperative transmission are all examples of multi-AP coordination (JXT).
