Next Generation of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi

4Next Generation of Wi-Fi

So indeed, Wi-Fi has seen quite a lot of evolution. However, the “evolution” itself is also evolving. More explicitly, the characteristics of amendments from the past, and now, are quite different, in terms of objectives and the technology itself. In this chapter, some of the current activities in relation to Wi-Fi and IEEE 802.11 will be explained. Note that majority of these activities are very application specific, more about adapting Wi-Fi into various scenarios and environments in the future, especially with regard to IoT. These activities not only include the future standardization efforts of the IEEE community, but also of the Wi-Fi alliance itself, and other efforts not related to the communities but worth noting as potential future usage in Wi-Fi.

4.1. Activities with regard to IEEE 802.11 standardization

4.1.1. IEEE P802.11az

First approved in 2015 and published in March 2023, IEEE 802.11az focuses on the positioning of Wi-Fi devices. Positioning, or also defined as localization, allows Wi-Fi STAs to estimate their x and y coordinates relative to the position of Wi-FI APs, which have pre-defined coordinates through GPS or manual settings. Method of localization was previously defined in the IEEE 802.11-2016 version, via the fine timing measurement (FTM) protocol, based on the round trip time (RTT) of a request signal followed by a response. However, the amendment aims to refine the measurement and improve the overall accuracy of the positioning, ...