The IEEE 802.11 Working Group on Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) is a Working Group of the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee of the IEEE Computer Society. It is chartered to define one medium access control (MAC) and several physical layer (PHY) specifications for wireless connectivity for fixed, portable, and moving stations (STAs) within a local area, with the purpose of providing wireless connectivity for fixed, portable, and moving STAs within a local area [1].
Among many of the standards the Working Group has been developing, IEEE P802.11be (enhancements for extremely high throughput) is one of the popular ones. It defines standardized modifications to both the IEEE Standard 802.11 PHY and MAC that enable at least one mode of operation capable of supporting a maximum throughput of at least 30 Gb/s, as measured at the MAC data service access point, with carrier frequency operation between 1 and 7.250 GHz while ensuring backward compatibility and coexistence with legacy IEEE Standard 802.11 compliant devices operating in the 2.4-, 5-, and 6-GHz bands. This amendment defines at least one mode of operation capable of improved worst case latency and jitter [2].
When compared with IEEE 802.11ax-2021 Standards, IEEE P802.11be improves performance and enhances spectrum coexistence capacities by introducing advanced features, including channel bandwidths of up to 320 MHz, 4 K-quadrature amplitude modulation, multiple resource units to a STA, multilink operation, enhanced quality of service, improved target wake time for improved battery life for Internet of Things or other applications, and improved punctured transmission/subchannels to accommodate coexistence with incumbents more effectively and efficiently.
The IEEE 802.11 Ultra High Throughput Study Group has been recently established [3] to build on top of IEEE P802.11be to improve reliability of WLAN connectivity, reduce latencies, increase manageability, increase throughput including at different levels of signal-to-noise ratio, and reduce device level power consumption. It is expected that the task group that results from this study group, will be formed in the fourth quarter of this year to begin the project development.
In parallel, given the popularity of using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to wireless communications, an IEEE 802.11 AIML Topic Interest Group was established in the third quarter of 2022 to explore use cases related to AI/ML that will apply to IEEE 802.11 systems and devices and investigate the technical feasibility of features enabling support of these AI/ML use cases [4]. It is worth mentioning that the focus of this Topic Interest Group is to identify changes needed to enable, utilize, or facilitate AI/ML operations in the existing 802.11 Standards, and any definition or specification of AI/ML model is out of scope. As of now, the Topic Interest Group is preparing a technical report that provides details on at least three identified use cases, including AI/ML-based channel state information feedback compression, deep learning-based distributed channel access, and efficient AI/ML model sharing [5]. It is expected that the IEEE 802.11 Ultra High Reliability Study Group will take into account this technical report of this Topic Interest Group for consideration and decide on whether to consider any AI/ML-related feature.
[1] Standard for Information Technology—Telecommunications and Information Exchange Between Systems Local and Metropolitan Area Networks—Specific Requirements–Part 11: Wireless Local Area Network (LAN) Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications, IEEE P802.11, 2021. Accessed: Mar. 6, 2023. [Online] . Available: https://standards.ieee.org/ieee/802.11/10548/
[2] IEEE Draft Standard for Information technology—Telecommunications and Information Exchange Between Systems Local and Metropolitan Area Networks—Specific Requirements–Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications Amendment: Enhancements for Extremely High Throughput (EHT), IEEE P802.11be, 2019. Accessed: Mar. 6, 2023. [Online] . Available: https://standards.ieee.org/ieee/802.11be/7516/
[3] Status of IEEE 802.11 Ultra High Reliability (UHR) SG, IEEE P802.11, 2023. Accessed: Mar. 6, 2023. [Online] . Available: https://www.ieee802.org/11/Reports/uhr_update.htm
[4] Status of IEEE 802.11 Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning (AIML) TIG, IEEE P802.11, 2023. Accessed: Mar. 6, 2023. [Online] . Available: https://www.ieee802.org/11/Reports/aiml_update.htm
[5] Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Topic Interest Group’s Proposed Technical Report Text for AIML Model Sharing Use Case, IEEE 802.11, 2023. Accessed: Mar. 6, 2023. [Online] . Available: https://mentor.ieee.org/802.11/documents?is_dcn=50&is_group=aiml&is_year=2023
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MVT.2023.3254123