Wi-Fi 8: Embracing the Millimeter-Wave Era

TL;DR

Wi-Fi 8 aims to incorporate millimeter-wave technology to meet high-demand applications like VR and AR, showing promising performance improvements through system-level simulations despite hardware challenges.

Contribution

This paper investigates the integration of mmWave into Wi-Fi 8, addressing protocol challenges and demonstrating potential performance gains through simulations.

Findings

Significant performance improvements with mmWave in Wi-Fi 8

Feasibility of mmWave integration demonstrated through simulations

Hardware limitations identified and considered in system design

Abstract

With the increasing demands in communication, Wi-Fi technology is advancing towards its next generation. As high-need applications like Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) emerge, the role of millimeter-wave (mmWave) technology becomes critical. This paper explores Wi-Fi 8's potential features, especially its integration of mmWave technology. We address the challenges of implementing mmWave under current protocols and examine the compatibility of new features with mmWave. Our study includes system-level simulations, upclocking the 802.11ac PPDU to 60 GHz, and considers hardware limitations. The results demonstrate significant performance improvements with mmWave in Wi-Fi 8, indicating its feasibility for high-demand wireless scenarios.