High-Performance Radio Local Area Network (HIPERLAN)

What Does High-Performance Radio Local Area Network (HIPERLAN) Mean?

A high-performance local area network (HIPERLAN) is an alternative wireless LAN standard to the IEEE
802.11. It is one of four standards (HIPERLAN 1 through 4) specified by the European
telecommunications standards institute (ETSI) to link interoperable technologies from different locations
instead of cable. HIPERLAN uses cellular-based data networks to connect to an ATM backbone.

The main idea behind HIPERLAN is to provide an infrastructure or ad-hoc wireless system with a small
radius.

Techopedia Explains High-Performance Radio Local Area Network (HIPERLAN)

HIPERLAN emerged in 1991 with the goal of achieving higher data rates than the 802.11 standard. It was
approved in 1996. A second version was introduceced in 2000. This version is designed as a fast wireless
connection and can be used with various networks, such as UMTS backbone, ATM, and IP networks.
HiperLAN/2 can also be used as a home network and supports a data rate of up to 54 Mbps.

Components of a HIPERLAN include:

 Physical Layer: This layer provides the standard functions, including radio frequency functions.

 Link Adaptation: This standard allows the access point to convey information in an uplink or
downlink direction. The HIPERLAN physical layer also specifies some link adaptation algorithms
to be used.

 Data Link Control (DLC) Layer: This layer includes the Media Acces Control (MAC), Radio Link
Control (RLC), Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) and Error Control (EC) protocols.

 Convergence Layer: Its basic function is to provide the HIPERLAN DLC and physical access to
other data networks.

This page compares HIPERLAN/1 vs HIPERLAN/2 and mentions difference between HIPERLAN/1 and

HIPERLAN/2.

HIPERLAN is the short form of High Performance Radio LAN. It is a variant of IEEE 802.11 standard

developed by ETSI BRAN for use in European region.

Following are the features of HIPERLAN/1:

• Operates at 5GHz

• Supports data rate upto 19 Mbps.

• It uses SC (Single Carrier) modulation such as GMSK.

• It uses complex equalizer to take care of delay spread.

Following are the features of HIPERLAN/2:

• Operates at 5GHz with 455MHz bandwidth.

• Supports data rate of 6 Mbps to 54 Mbps similar to 802.11a

• it uses multi carrier (i.e. OFDM) modulation like 802.11a

• It uses two bands one for indoor use and the other for outdoor use with power at 200 milliWatt and 1

Watt respectively.

HiperLAN 1 Reference Model:

HiperLAN 1 defines Data Link Layer and Physical Layer. For Local Area Networks, Data
Link Layer is further divided into two sublayers: the Logical Link Control (LLC) and the
Medium Access Control (MAC). HiperLAN 1 only deals with MAC and PHY.

An intermediate layer, the Channel Access and Control (CAC) sublayer, is introduced in
the HiperLAN 1 architecture to deal with the channel access signaling and protocol
operation required supporting packet priority. A pseudo-hierarchically independent
access mechanism is achieved via active signaling in a listen-before-talk access
protocol. The Elimination-Yield Non-Preemptive Multiple Access (EY-NPMA)
mechanism codes priority level selection and contention resolution into a single,
variable length radio pulse preceding packet data. EY-NPMA provides good residual
collision rate performance for even large numbers of simultaneous channel contenders.
Physical Layer
RF carriers
HiperLAN 1 uses the radio frequency band 5,150 MHz to 5,300 MHz. The following
table shows the nominal frequency of each carrier. It's required that all transmissions
shall be centered on one of the nominal carrier frequencies, and all HiperLAN 1
equipments shall operate on all 5 channels.

Table 1 : Nominal Carrier center frequencies

The carriers numbered 0, 1 and 2 are designated the "default" carriers.
Clear Channel Assessment (CCA)
The HiperLAN 1 clear channel assessment scheme is based on the measurement of
the received signal strength only. A threshold is used for determining whether the
channel is busy or idle. Because the signal strength will vary with time, the time-domain
variation of the received signal strength is used for threshold adaptation.
Modulation
For HiperLAN 1, Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK) is used as the high bit rate
modulation scheme to modulate a high rate transmission. GMSK is a Constant
Envelope modulation scheme, which means that the amplitude of the transmitted signal
is constant. This is important, because less stringent linearity can be demanded of the
RF amplifier, which in turn means the cost of the radio is lower and, more importantly,
the efficiency of the power amplifier (the ratio of actual RF energy transmitted compared
to the electrical energy consumed) is quite good.
Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) is used as the low bit rate modulation scheme to
modulate a low rate transmission. FSK is specified as follows: (fc is the center
frequency.)

Table 2 : Nominal frequencies for FSK modulation

Difference between HIPERLAN/1 and HIPERLAN/2
Following table summarizes key difference between HIPERLAN/1 and HIPERLAN/2 standards.

Specifications HIPERLAN/1 HIPERLAN/2

Access technique TDMA, EY NPMA TDMA, TDD

BPSK-OFDM, QPSK-
Modulation OFDM, 16QAM-OFDM,
technique GMSK, FSK 64QAM-OFDM

From 6, 9, 12, 18, 27, 36,

Data rate (Mbps) 23 (HBR), 1.4 (LBR) 48, 54

Frequency of
operation 5.1 GHz to 5.3 GHz 5.1 GHz to 5.3 GHz

Data rate 23.2 Mbps Greater than 20 Mbps

Wireless ATM, Indoor

Application WLAN Access

Infrastructure, De-centralised
Topology Ad-Hoc cellular, centralized

Antenna type Omni-directional Omni-directional

Coverage Range 50 meters 50 to 100 meters

Interface LAN ATM networks

Mobility less than 10 m/s less than 10 m/s

High Performance LAN (Hiperlan)

HIPERLAN is a European (ETSI) standardization initiative for a HIgh PERformance

wireless Local Area Network.

The tentative design parameters for HIPERLAN were:

Parameter Traffic Type Value

Data rate asynchronous 1 to 20 Mbit/s

  time-bounded 64 kbit/s to 2.048 kbit/s

20 Mbit/s 1000 Mbit/s per hectare per

Systems throughput  
floor

Mean latency asynchronous <1 ms. (at 30% capacity)

Latency of service initiation time-bounded <3 S

MSDU Delay variance asynchronous no limit

  time-bounded <3.0 mS2

to 50 m at 20 Mbit/s
Range  
to 800 m at 1 Mbit/s

Area Coverage   99.9% (single hop)

Temporal Coverage   99.9% (single hop)

MPDU detected loss/error rate   <10-3

MPDU undetected loss/error rate   <8x10-8 per octet pf MPDU length

MSDU undetected loss/error rate   <5x10-14 per octet of MPDU length

 Co-location tolerance   50 cm of free space

Mobility tolerance   10 m/s linear, 360o/s angular

Packet information field maximum size   16 Kbytes

Physical size target (excl. antenna PC-Card (PCMCIA) type III (85x54x10.5
 
system) mm)

Power consumption   few hundreds of mW

The ETSI HIPERLAN Reference Model defines the components needed to build a
Private Virtual Radio Sub-Network. Private in this context means user-owned and
-operated. A Virtual Sub-Network is a logical subset of a set of communicating
entities each of which is differentiated from the rest by some unambiguous identifier
[Node Identifier or NID]. Virtual Sub-Networks are differentiated by an additional
level of unambiguous identifier [HIPERLAN Identifier or HID].

PERFORMANCE

Performance is one of the most important factors when dealing with wireless LANs.
In contrast to other radio-based systems, data traffic on a local area network has a
randomized bursty nature, which may cause serious problems with respect to
throughput.

To give just a brief view of the problems we are faced with, we use HIPERLAN as an
example. The following may be through for any radio-based LAN. HIPERLAN is,
among other things, a MAC standard. This means that not only the "radio" operation
of a HIPERLAN station, but also details on how to solve protocol-related issues like
re-transmission, relaying and routing is covered.

HIPERLAN is designed to work without any infrastructure. Two stations may

exchange data directly, without any interaction from a wired (or radio-based)
infrastructure. The simplest HIPERLAN thus consists of two stations. Further, if two
HIPERLAN stations are not in radio contact with each other, they may use a third
station (i.e. the third station must relay messages between the two communicating
stations). How this is done in practice we will deal with later. Figure 1 shows the
relative throughput as a function of the relative network utilization, for various types
of LANs.

Figure 1
Throughput
S as a
function of
relative
utilization a
for different
network
types

References
:
ALOHA
CSMA

It shows, that a slotted CSMA/CD scheme has the best over-all performance, while
the ALOHA schemes has the poorest. In nature, a simple HIPERLAN between two
stations that are in direct radio contact, will be an unslotted CSMA/CD system. In a
system like that, the throughput S is given by:

where A is the probability of one station attempting to acquire the medium, and
Propagation delay time
a = -------------------------------
Transmission time of a packet
The number of stations, or networking nodes, between two communicating parties in a
HIPERLAN affects the overall throughput of the network. Not only are the bridging
nodes loaded with network traffic of their own, but also with pass-through traffic that
requires path and route resolving. Depending on the processing capacity of the
bridging nodes, throughput is reduced primary by transition delay. To overcome this,
the data packet size at the MAC layer must be as large as possible, reducing the
overhead per package routed through the HIPERLAN. If we assume, that the packet
size is such that the delay caused by routing is 1/10 of the transmission time for each
packet, the throughput for a HIPERLAN network consisting of two or more bridging
nodes can be calculated. Figure 2 shows, that as long as the utilization of the network
is low, the number of bridging nodes plays no significant role to the throughput, while
when the utilization grows, a degradation of throughput is expected.

Figure 2:
Throughpu
t in a
HIPERLAN
as function
of
utilization
and the
number of
intermedia
te bridging
nodes

This result is not surprising. The question is, if it will be possible to define a MAC
protocol that allows for large packets on one hand, and on the other hand may
interface to existing LAN driver interface specifications such as NDIS or ODI.
Further, another question is, if the assumption, that the transition delay in the
forwarding nodes can be as little as 1/10 of the transmission time. At 16 Mbit/s and
with an average package size of 8 Kbytes, the total transition time must be less than
4,1 mS which corresponds to about 200.000 CPU clock-cycles at 50 MHz.

Further one should have in mind, that HIPERLAN has been defined as bearer of both
asynchronous and synchronous traffic. The consequence of mixing asynchronous and
synchronous traffic on the same HIPERLAN is not yet known.

Hiperlan 2

A new set of standards are under construction for a new version of HIPERLAN - HIPERLAN2.
The idea of HIPERLAN2 is to be compatible with ATM.

There is also undergoing work to establish global sharing rules. The WINForum for
NII/SUPERNET in the US aim to support HIPERLAN 1 and HIPERLAN 2. This effort involves
interaction between ETSI RES10, WINForum, ATM Forum.

Figure 2 - The future of HIPERLAN

Reference Hiperlan 2 Configuation

The reference configuration consists of

 Data scrambling
User data is exor-ed with the output of a 7-bit Linear Feedback shift register LSFR with
polynomial X7 + x4 + 1 is used to randomize the data. The sequence length is 127.

 FEC error coding

Convolutional encoding with puncturing. The length of the encoder is 6. The generator
polynomials are 133 (oct) and 171 (oct) for two outputs per input symbol. Pucturing is
used for code rates other than 1/2, namely 3/4 and 9/16.

 Interlaeving
Two permutations

 Mapping bits to QAM

BPSK, QPSK, 16 or 64 QAM are used.

 OFDM
64 subcarriers. sampling rate is 1/T = 20 MHz. The useful symbol duration is 64T or 3.2
microsecond. The prefix has a duration of 16T. Optionally, a prefix of 8T can be used. So
the total frame (OFDM symbol) duration is 80T (4 microsec) or 72T. 48 subcarriers carry
data. 4 subcarriers are used as pilots to estimate the channel. Hence only 52 of the 64
subcarriers are actually in use, the others contain no signal. In the specification these are
numbered -26, -25, ..., 26. Subcarriers used for pilots are -21, -7, 7, and 21. No signal is
transmitted at subcarrier 0 (DC).
The subcarrier spacing equals 312.5 kHz.

 PHY burst transmission

Different burst formats for up and downlink

 Radio transmission