IEEE 802.11ba

1Introduction

1.1 Background

The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) is a major professional organization which, among other things, develops standards. One of the most famous IEEE standard is IEEE 802.11, which is a standard for wireless local area networks. Implementations of IEEE 802.11 number in the billions. IEEE 802.11 implementations are certified by the Wi‐Fi Alliance and referred to as Wi‐Fi products in the marketplace. These Wi‐Fi products have become ubiquitous and are used for wireless connectivity for smartphones, laptop computers, tablet computers, and numerous other devices. Wi‐Fi networks are used in homes, business enterprises, and many other locations.

Since the first version of the IEEE 802.11 standard published in 1997, there have been many amendments to the standard which provide additional capabilities. An amendment to the standard adds content to the standard specifying new features and capabilities. Some of these are well‐known major amendments like 802.11n, 802.11ac, and 802.11ax, which bring significant increases in data rate and network throughput. There are also smaller amendments to the IEEE 802.11 standard, which are more focused on a few new key features.

Many of these new amendments to the 802.11 standard, which increase the data rate and throughput of the network, often also increase the power consumption of the 802.11 devices. This is because either additional electronic circuits are needed to implement these new higher‐rate ...