Types of Antennas: Yagi, Horn, Cellular

The wireless network is the infrastructure less mobile network which is used for the communication with less interference of cables (Fitzek & Katz, 2006). The current report is based on the wireless network concepts that provide the different types of antennas including yagi, horn, cellular. Further, new three wireless protocols such as Wi-Fi direct, RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) and 6LoWPAN (Lower Power Wireless Protocols) have been identified as the wireless network. In the end, a critical evaluation has been done on the software-defined wireless networking articles with the use of relevant references.

Wireless network refers to the combination of different networks that uses the wireless data connection with the help of the computer network (Kirti, 2012, p.2187). The wireless network has a significant contribution in reducing the cost of the installation process because it does not use the cables to connect the equipment at different locations (Haenggi, 2012). There are several wireless antennas such as yagi, horn and cellular etc. that are used for the better connectivity with business drivers as well as homes.

  Quasi-Yagi antenna was developed in 1998 and this is used for the millimetre and microwave frequencies applications (Qian & et al., 1998). Yagi antenna offers such kind of features like ease fabrication, incur a low cost for installation, high efficiency and huge bandwidth etc. Further, Quasi-Yagi antenna’s regular dipoles driver can be redeveloped in the form of double, bowtie and multi-branch dipoles to achieve the wideband features. In this context, this antenna is not effective for the Yagi-Uda antenna as it is not concerned with the radiation pattern and this also requires the large ground plane to install the antenna (Wu & et al., 2010). Thus, to remove the drawbacks of Yagi-Uda, a new CPS-fed planner Yagi-Uda antennas was innovated because it offers the advanced services. However, this is not applicable for the array applications due to the feed structure of the antenna (Eldek, 2007; Han & et al., 2009).

Compact and lightweight horn antenna is known as dielectric-loaded H-plane. This antenna uses the Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) technology for the steerable multi-sector antenna (Yousefbeiki & et al., 2012, p.2367). Moreover, this antenna can be scanned at the full 360⁰ on the horizontal area for the selected location. On the other hand, dual-polarized ultra-wideband horn antenna was identified which is useful for radar systems because this is based on UWB design that is prepared from 8-18 GHz (Yin & et al., 2008, p321). This antenna has the dual-polarized facility which contains two antennas such as E-Plane and H-plane in the shape of rectangular. Moreover, this type of antenna is helpful to achieve the large bandwidth frequency like more than 500 MHz for the communication system. Furthermore, Horn antenna is used in the satellite tracking, radio astronomy and communication sector etc. throughout the world. Additionally, this antenna is supported by the radiation beam for the entire frequency (Wang & et al., 2010, p.58).

Strengths and Weaknesses of Different Antennas

Cellular antenna is known as the smart antenna that is used for the cellular mobile communication (Jain, Katiyar & Agrawal, 2012). The cellular antenna is helpful in minimizing the overall cost of the network by adopting the new wireless network for the system. Further, this type of antenna provides the better service quality and transparent activities across the multiple wireless networks (Jacobs & et al., 2012). Moreover, the cellular configuration built the smart structure for the web and provided the improvement in the design.

	Yagi antenna	Horn antenna	Cellular antenna
Strengths	· It receives the lower strengths signals · Highly demanded in telecommunications · It is simpler as well as less cos than log periodic antennas	· It offers better bandwidth as 10% · It is used the parabolic reflector which deliver high gain	· It is a multi-channel radio tower · It can communicate with individual phones · It has increased range and does not require many antennas for the coverage · Maximized bandwidth
Weaknesses	· Bandwidth range is limited · A single antenna is limited around 20db (Waterhouse, 2008)	· It does not provide sharp beam · Limited gain to 20db (Eskelinen & et al., 2004)	· Complicated than traditional antennas · More expensive · Large size in compare to traditional antennas (Nakar, 2004)

By evaluation of different antennas, it has been perceived that the cellular antenna would be a dominant player in the future for the long-distance wireless network. Yagi-Uda antenna is applicable for the large ground plane. However, the horn antenna is useful only in radar systems because the radiation beam supports it. According to evaluation, it has been found that cellular antenna is helpful in creating a smart structure for the network of networks and facilitates the lower cost as well as full frequency for the implementation among multiple network, unlike other antennas.

There are several types of wireless network protocols such as Wide Area Network (WAN), Local Area Network (LAN), Medium Area Network (MAN) etc. which are in use from a long time (Akyildiz & et al., 2006). These protocols are used as per the distance of area and accordingly the system operator uses the network protocol for the communication. Besides this, recently different types of advanced protocols have been introduced including 802.11, 802.16, RFID, Wi-Fi direct, Li-Fi, 6LoWPAN, 5G and LTE etc. (Glisic & Lorenzo, 2009).). Additionally, there are three more recent protocols such as Wi-Fi Mesh, WiMAX and WLAN also developed for the wireless network connectivity and these are explained below in detail-

 Wi-Fi protocol refers to the transmission of Wi-Fi messages through smartphones, android as well as laptops without associated with own network (Barbu & et al., 2012). With the help of this protocol, the communicator can be able to use the other’s available interface in cellphone, laptops or PC and can transmit the information instantly with the help of the Wi-Fi network. Further, the wireless access points can be scanned then a response receives by available systems and a single wireless access network can be selected for the connectivity. Moreover, the 802.11 is also known as the family of protocols such as 802.11a, 802.11b etc. (Miorandi & et al., 2012). Consumers, manufacturers use the Wi-Fi protocol because these are less expensive and most required for the today’s generation. The W-Fi network remains secured with a password to avoid the access of unknown people without entering the authentic security password.

Advanced Wireless Network Protocols: Wi-Fi Direct, RFID, 6LoWPAN

RFID is a sensor related unit which is used in the form of the small chip that helps in assessing the temperature (Opasjumruskit & et al., 2006, p.54). Recently, the RFID is using the UWB technology to overcome the limitations of the current narrowband RFID technology (Lazaro & et al., 2011). This UWB technique is based on the low-cost radars and this is also promising to access the results for the small distance areas along with sensor applications (Girbau & et al., 2012).

This technology is used for the sensor network application (Rghioui, Bouhorma & Benslimane, 2013). 6LoWPAN is a part of IEEE 802.11ah family protocol which provides the 900MHz network band. Moreover, 6LoWPAN technology has extended a range of area as compared to the traditional wireless network such as Wi-Fi. This protocol has various competitors including ZigBee and other well-established protocols in the wireless industry (Patel & Champaneria, 2015). This technology is used in multiple sectors like car parking, transmission of data, sensor-based topology etc. However, this technology has a challenge regarding the quality of service (Bouaziz & Rachedi, 2016). Although, this is helpful in reducing the problem of dis-connectivity of data and networks.

	Wi-Fi direct	RFID	6LoWPAN
Strengths	· Network security with password · Increased mobility · Cost effective	· Specially used for tracking the luggage · It is versatile in nature · It provides the security patterns	· Less power consumption · Balanced load of networks
Weaknesses	· Speed is lower than wired networks which is 1-54 Mbps · It is not applicable for the large range (Bellalta, 2016)	· It is expensive by using the batteries · Less coverage area as 3 meters (Ajami & Carter, 2013)	· Single layer security approach · Limited range (250kbps) (Lu, Li & Wu, 2011)

In this paper, Bernardos & et al. (2014) emphasized on the Software Defined Networking (SDN) that are used to achieve the more effective with the support of new network services. Nowadays, the demand of the customers is increasing for the new network infrastructure and there is a huge competition as well as challenges among all the operators. In this manner, to mitigate the problems and meet the demand of consumers, new network services like cloud computing, SDN etc. have been identified to meet the current and future requirement. These services are beneficial to reduce the overall cost of the outsourcing communication services.  Moreover, the SDN approach was used which is applicable to both wired and wireless networking. However, Sezer & et al. (2014) identified that SDN is unable to manage the high-touch and high-security performance packet processing flows in an efficient manner. Further, this protocol offers the speed for transmitting the data with less security and cost. Therefore, it reveals that the SDN provides the high-quality with the delivery of information but data are not secure in the transmission process.

In this article, it has been found that there are two significant panels such as control and data plane. Control plane controls the all over decisions that where the data should be sent whereas data plane is used to forward the traffic to the selected location (Bernardos & et al., 2014). Furthermore, SDN is more efficient in comparison to traditional networks because this is used for the deployment of new protocols as well as applications. In this context, the SDN network is helpful to increase the flexibility of home network management by applying the traffic engineering decisions and the central controller for the mobile devices (Kim & Feamster, 2013).

Strengths and Weaknesses of Advanced Protocols

There are several wireless devices such as open flow, Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAP) and re-configurable has been used to standardize the interface to control the mobile devices. Moreover, the open flow enables the interface between control and forwarding layers of the SDN architecture. Further, this is also helpful to create integration among heterogeneous devices in a very systematic manner as well as operations of the multi-vendor infrastructure which is specially used in commercial telecom networks. Moreover, the CAPWAP is used to deliver the control frames to a central controller that is responsible for the MAC layer control. This is directly related to the open flow controller that provides the information regarding the new incoming flows. However, the MAC protocol is more applicable in case of maximum traffic load because this is directly uploading the central controller at the given location in time (Bianchi & et al., 2012). Therefore, according to this analysis, it has been found that SDN network is used for both wireless and wired network to control the incoming and outgoing flows of the system with the help of the open streams and CAPWAP protocols.  

The new technology like SDN has been adopted for the deployment of virtualized infrastructure because this is helpful to reduce the time of installation, required less manual planning and dimensioning for the network protocols. In this regard, the deployment of SDN is useful to reduce the workload of network configuration and management as well as offers the additional functionalities to the network (Sundaresan & et al., 2011). On the other hand, Software Defined Wireless Network (SDWN) architecture has been introduced which is a radio access network. This supports multiple functionality levels to allow for incremental deployments (Hu & et al., 2015). Furthermore, two different types of models such as evolutionary and clean slate were adopted to implement the SDWN architecture. In this regard, the evolutionary model allows for incremental deployment in existing networks whereas in clean slate the control plane functions are directly programmed on the SDN controller. Therefore, the SDWN is an imperative network protocol for the SDN because it offers the multiple functionalities for the different operators and provides the incremental deployment of the network. The evaluation reflects that deployment of SDN mechanisms in the wireless field is fruitful because this offers the high-level architecture leveraging for the logical centralization of a network of SDN.

On the basis of the analysis, it has been found that the users’ demand for the wireless networks is drastically increasing. The wireless mobile networks are dealing with the problem in the context of efficiently growing traffic demand for the network. In the study, it has been evaluated that the SDN is based on the virtualization of networks which is related to the data and control and plane task and provides the flexible deployment of core services.

Software-Defined Networking (SDN)

Dynamic and Scalable Software Defined Architecture for cellular WANs (SoftMoW) have the issues related to Path inflation, limited access for the deploying networks and scalability as well as reliability issues (Moradi & et al., 2014). Furthermore, the Path inflation showing the limited number of centralized P-GWs which is causing the large number of claims and higher access delays in context of UEs. However, to deal with these challenges and issues, a new Gigantic Base Stations (G-BS) and G-Switches has been identified which are linked with the group switches (Rangisetti & Tamma, 2017). These groups are associated with the new cellular architecture that is helpful in configuring the cellular network. Owing to this, it reveals that wireless software defined networks are not established completely for the use of commercial or home requirement networks.

Another a major issue was identified in the SoftRAN which is related to the separation of radio access network decision that comes under the base station elements and controller of the network (Gudipati & et al., 2013). To mitigate this issue, the central controller should focus on the load imbalance and interference for that global knowledge of RAN is required in wireless software design architecture. On the basis of this issue, it has been found that the scheduling decisions should depend on the base stations of the wireless designed network. Further, there are few virtual issues for the wireless defined network which are related to the capacity of the network. Moreover, the NFs capacity of the virtual network is lower than physical NF capacity and this capacity is related to the problem arises during the handling of higher loads. However, the virtualization is important as per the future aspect because the current wireless network environment is based on the SDWN architecture that includes the control plane virtualization strategies (Sun & et al., 2014). As per this requirement, a new novel SDWN network has been proposed to reduce the limitations of SDWN protocol (Zhou & et al., 2015). Owing to this, it has been identified that wireless defined network architectures are needed to meet the future expectations of the customers because of the current business era based on the wireless networks for the smooth communication.  

Conclusion

On the basis of the report, it has been concluded that there are different types of wireless antennas among them yagi, horn and cellular are the recent technologies. On the basis of evaluation, it has been found that cellular antennas are a dominant player as per the future aspects because this occurs the lower cost and more frequency as compared to other antennas. Further, it is also concluded that there are three major recent protocols Wi-Fi, RFID and 6LoWPAN that are adopted by the home and business consumers. In the end, it has been concluded that the Wi-Fi wireless network is mostly preferred by the people for the wireless communication.

Critique of Software-Defined Wireless Networking Articles

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