Wireless networks are rapidly becoming a part of the ubiquitous computing environment, and whether they are enterprise networks or in public hot spots (for example in airports, hotels, homes), often they are deployed in infrastructureless environments. The rapid specification development phase and the tight time to market cycle that follows leave little room for performance enhancements and proper coexistence consideration.

Why did I write this book?

Having gone through a somewhat complete performance analysis and coexistence development cycle for wireless network technologies being developed by the IEEE 802 standard working groups, and having gained some experience on the topic, I feel compelled to share it with other network engineers and researchers that are pursuing similar objectives. In particular, I would like to share the methodologies developed and the lessons learned from this process with others embarking on a similar quest.

The audience for this book includes: (1) researchers interested in performance evaluation and interference mitigation techniques; (2) wireless systems engineers and practitioners designing wireless communication systems; (3) users of wireless networks.

This book is unique because it focuses on a system level view of the problem of interference and its solution space. Generally, interference is dealt with at the physical layer. There are several outstanding books that focus on the accurate characterization of the wireless channel in addition to the development of physical layer techniques for filtering and anti-jamming.