With the development of Wi-Fi 5 in 2016, there is now a set of specified beamforming techniques for Wi-Fi equipment that allow it to interoperate in a vendor-neutral way (different receivers can work with different routers).īeamforming also supports multi-user MIMO, also known as MU-MIMO, which allows multiple users to communicate simultaneously with multiple antennas on the router. Beamforming requires the use of MIMO (multiple input multiple output) technology in order to send out multiple overlapping signals.
While beamforming has been around since Wi-Fi 4, improvements were made in Wi-Fi 5 and now Wi-Fi 6. For example, 802.11ac is now known as Wi-Fi 5 and 802.11n is simply Wi-Fi 4. The 802.11ax protocol itself is the next generation following the 802.11ac standard, but with better naming through the Wi-Fi Alliance.
The latest generation of Wi-Fi, now known as Wi-Fi 6, was originally known as 802.11ax. But improvements in processor power and efficiency have made beamforming techniques affordable enough to build into the latest consumer wireless equipment, as well as enterprise-grade wireless hardware.Īnother limitation is that beamforming’s benefits diminish the farther away a receiver is from a transmitter. Limitations of beamforming mostly involve the computing resources required other scenarios exist where the time and power resources needed by beamforming calculations end up negating its advantages. Because beamforming can also be used to reduce or eliminate broadcasting in other directions, it can help reduce interference for users trying to pick up other signals. Benefits and limits of beamformingįocusing a signal in a specific direction lets you deliver a higher signal quality to the receiver, which then means faster information transfer and fewer errors, without having to boost the power of the broadcast. But we're going to limit our discussion here to wireless networking and communications. Any form of energy that travels in waves, including sound, can benefit from beamforming techniques they were first developed to improve sonar during World War II and are still important to audio engineering. The mathematics behind beamforming is very complex (the Math Encounters blog has an introduction, if you want a taste), but the application of beamforming techniques is not new. When executed correctly, this beamforming process focuses a signal to a specific direction. The overlapping waves will produce interference, which in some areas is constructive (making the signal stronger), and in other areas destructive (making the signal weaker or undetectable). In order to focus the signal in a specific direction, to form a targeted beam of electromagnetic energy, multiple antennas in close proximity broadcast the same signal at slightly different times. The nature of electromagnetic waves is that signals radiate in all directions from a single antenna, unless blocked by a physical object. The resulting direct connection is faster and more reliable than it would be without beamforming. What is beamforming?īeamforming is a technique that focuses a wireless signal towards a specific receiving device, rather than have the signal spread in all directions, like from a broadcast antenna. In combination with MU-MIMO technologies, beamforming helps users get more precise connections that boost their data speeds. While the concepts of beamforming have been around since the 1940s, the technology is currently playing a key role in improving modern wireless communication standards such as Wi-Fi and 5G.
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