VRUSHALI.V.KADU et al.
/ (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES
An Overview of Wi-Fi booster antenna
VRUSHALI.V.KADU*
M.E. IV sem [Wireless Communication & Computing]
Department Of Computer Science And Engineering
G.H.Raisoni College Of Engineering, Nagpur
(GMAIL: sparkvru@gmail.com)
Abstract:
Wi-Fi Internet access is fast gaining popularity as we are
entering the 'unplugged' phase of communication technology.
This journey towards an unplugged world began with the first
telegraph and first radio. Since then, telecommunication
technology has not looked back and has shown its versatility by
contributing to every field of technology. Wi-Fi has developed
from synergy of wireless communication, computer networking
and Internet technology. It has radically changed the way we
connect and communicate. Wi-Fi antenna boosters are devices
that help in enhancing the signal strength and range of Wi-Fi
signals. This research work provides description about existing
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technology and also the methodology that is employed. Wireless
signals are susceptible to a lot of data loss . When it comes to the
wireless signal strength that will be received, the topography of
the place where we stay is also a deciding factor. Bidirectional
Wi-Fi signal boosters increase the strength of transmitted, as
well as received signals.
Keywords:
Smart Antenna, MIMO (multiple input multiple output), Wi-Fi,
Antenna booster, repeater.
I. INTRODUCTION
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A wireless local area network (WLAN) is a network of
computers linked without any wires and connected by
transmission of electromagnetic (radio) signals. Wi-Fi is the
technology that has made it possible. Wi-Fi technology
provides wireless internet access through the transmission of
radio frequency carrier waves. However, electromagnetic
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signals weaken with increasing distance from the source. In
wired networks, one can simply access far away points by
bringing in longer connecting cables, but in wireless
networks that is not possible. The signal strength reduces as
we go away from Wi-Fi transmission. Imagine a sphere
around a Wi-Fi transmission router. As we go away from
center of the sphere, signal strength goes down and
connectivity becomes difficult. With Wi-Fi internet access
facility installed in a house, the range of Internet accessibility
is compromised by the walls and the interiors of the house. It
is difficult to find an optimum position for a Wi-Fi antenna
with a limited range, so that one can gain access easily in the
whole house. To remedy this situation and overcome this
limitation of reach, one alternative is to use a wireless signal
booster. As the name of the device suggests, it boosts the
Wi-Fi signals and increases reach of these signals. It enlarges
the sphere of reach around the Wi-Fi router.
ISSN: 2230-7818 @ 2011 http://www.ijaest.iserp.org. All rights Reserved.
Vol No. 2, Issue No. 1, 047 - 051
V.A.GULHANE
Assistant Professor
Department Of Computer Science And Engineering
G.H.Raisoni College Of Engineering, Nagpur
(GMAIL: vinagulhane@gmail.com)
Advantages Of Using A Wi-Fi Signal Booster:
Wi-Fi signal booster antennas, also called Wi-Fi
signal amplifiers are attached to routers or access points to
boost the signal. Good quality and powerful Wi-Fi signal
amplifiers can increase the signal strength threefold.
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Bidirectional Wi-Fi signal boosters increase the strength of
transmitted, as well as received signals. That is, they work
both ways. They boost signal strength by as much as 600%.
They can be used as laptop Wi-Fi signal boosters and extend
range of Internet access far beyond your home. The need for
seamless, uninterrupted and reliable communication is one of
the top priorities of every house. The wide access to some
really useful information base, for every kind of user makes
it extremely important to set up a repeater, which delivers
high performance. Repeater is a networking device which,
as the name suggests, repeats the signal or increases the
reach of the existing wireless network. Very often, it happens
that a device has to be connected to an existing wireless
network, but it is away in a remote place in the house or a
building, where the signal strength is too low or unreachable.
A wireless repeater is used in such cases to boost the signal
strength or simply repeat the signal so that the said computer
comes under the coverage area.
Wireless Signal Booster For Laptops:
Wireless signals are susceptible to a lot of data loss .
When it comes to the wireless signal strength that will be
received, the topography of the place where we stay is also a
deciding factor. If a large number of trees or buildings come
in between laptop and the router we are connecting to, the
signal strength will be almost nil. Besides everything, the
wireless network cards, that come inbuilt, have very limited
power and range. The answer then lies in using a wireless
signal booster. A simple solution is getting a wireless card
with a higher power or attaching an external USB antenna to
the laptop. Wireless signal boosters are simple devices and
can simply be plugged into the USB port of your laptop. The
taller the antenna of your wireless booster, the better the
reception. The working of the wireless booster is pretty
simple. It accepts strong signals from the router and
amplifies them inside your network, thus increasing the
signal strength to a great deal. A wireless signal booster
consists of two antennas - the transmitting antenna and the
receiving antenna. The receiving antenna is connected to an
intermediate amplifier. The other input to the intermediate
amplifier is a radio signal source. The intermediate amplifier
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Vol No. 2, Issue No. 1, 047 - 051

amplifies the difference between the two signals; the

received signal and the radio signal, and passes it over to a
low-noise amplifier. This is done to remove any unwanted
signals. The low-noise amplifier is connected to the
transmitter. The low-noise amplifier further amplifies the
received signal and sends it to the wireless card. The wireless
signal antennas in the laptops are located internally.
Generally, there are two parallel antennas located on the two
sides of the LCD screen. The internal location of the wireless
antennas causes bad reception of the wireless signals. So, the
first problem that a wireless signal booster needs to solve, is
to provide an external high gain antenna. This antenna needs
to be directed to the access point.

II. EXISTING TECHNOLOGY Fig 1: Antenna Comparison

A. Smart Antenna Technology

Feature Benefit
Smart Antenna Technology Basically consists of

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Switched-beam and Adaptive Array Antennas. Switched- Signal gain-inputs from Better range/coverage-
beam systems have several available fixed beam patterns. A multiple antenna focusing the energy
decision is made as to which beam to access, at any given elements are combined sent/received to increase
point in time, based upon the requirements of the system. to optimize available range and coverage
Adaptive arrays allow the antenna to steer the beam to any power required to
direction of interest while simultaneously mulling interfering establish given level of
signals. Smart antenna systems are also a defining coverage.
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characteristic of MIMO systems, such as the IEEE 802.11n
standard. Conventionally, a smart antenna is a unit of a
wireless communication system and performs spatial signal
Interference rejection-
Antenna pattern can be
suppressed toward co-
Increased capacity-
precise control of signal
nulls quality and
processing with multiple antennas[6]. Multiple antennas can
be used at either the transmitter or receiver. Recently, the channel interference mitigation of interference
technology has been extended to use the multiple antennas at sources improving the combine to frequency
both the transmitter and receiver; such a system is called a SIR of the received reuse , increase distance ,
multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system. As extended signals improving capacity
Smart Antenna technology, MIMO supports spatial
information processing, in the sense that conventional Spatial diversity- Multi path rejection- can
research on Smart Antennas has focused on how to provide a composite information reduce the effective delay
A
beam forming advantage by the use of spatial signal from the array is used to spread of the channel,
processing in wireless channels. Spatial information minimize fading and allowing higher bit rates
processing includes spatial information coding such as other undesirable effects to be supported w/o the
spatial multiplexing and Diversity Coding, as well as beam of multi-path use of an equalizer.
forming. The dual purpose of smart antenna system is to propagation.
augment the signal quality of the radio based system through
more focused transmission of radio signals while enhancing Power efficiency- Reduced expense- lower
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capacity through increased frequency reuse. Smart antenna combines the input to amplifier costs, power
provides some drawbacks such as : The higher number of multiple elements to consumption and higher
antenna elements making up the small base station antenna optimize available reliability.
array, the higher the available gain, the larger the size and processing gain in the
higher the price. Lower gain results in reduced size and price. downlink
Table 1 gives the various features and benefits provided by Table 1: Smart Antenna Features & benefit
the smart antenna technology.
B. MIMO Technology

Multiple-Input, multiple-Output (MIMO) is a

technology that uses multiple antennas on the sides of
transmitter and receiver. MIMO exploits the fact that radio
frequency signals usually are reflected by the objects found
in their way generating the phenomenon called multiple path.
MIMO uses a technique called spatial multiplexing that
transmit multiple data streams at the same frequency, but
through different spatial channels. MIMO take transmission

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VRUSHALI.V.KADU et al. / (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES
Vol No. 2, Issue No. 1, 047 - 051

over multiple channels and converts from a shortfall in for radiolocation (radar), on the UHF and SHF parts of the
benefit. MIMO makes channel more effective because a electromagnetic spectrum. The relatively short wavelength of
spatial multiplexing increases the speed ratio baud/hertz. electromagnetic radiation at these frequencies allows
“Multiple input” component of MIMO means that a MIMO reasonably sized reflectors to exhibit the desired highly
WLAN equipment sends two or more radio signals to directional response for both receiving and transmitting.
multiple antennas, and “multiple-output” means that two or
more radio signals coming from multiple antennas and reach
the radio equipment[1]. Multipath propagation is a feature of
all wireless communication environments. There is usually a
primary (most direct) path from a transmitter at point “A” to
a receiver at point “B”. Some of the transmitted signal takes
other paths to the receiver, bouncing off objects, the ground,
or layers of the atmosphere. Signals traversing less direct
paths arrive at the receiver later and are often attenuated. A
common strategy for dealing with weaker multipath signals
is to simply ignore them in which case the energy they
contain is wasted. The strongest multipath signals may be too
strong to ignore, however, and can degrade the performance
of wireless LAN equipment based on existing standards.

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Radio signals can be depicted on a graph with the vertical
axis indicating amplitude and the horizontal axis indicating
time as sine waves [5].

III. METHODOLOGY

The Aim is to design different Wi-Fi booster antenna

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and analyze the performance to improve the signal strength
for long distance. To overcome drawbacks of existing
technology such as :
The High Cost of booster Antennas available in the
market. The booster antennas available in market costs very
high in dollars and are easily available in foreign countries. B. Cantenna
This adds to the cost of travelling or shipping the product to
the user destination. A cantenna is a directional waveguide antenna for long-
The reduced Wi-Fi signal strength for long distance. This range Wi-Fi used to increase the range of (or discover) a
aims at increasing the number of access points but in spite of wireless network. While cantennas are useful for extending a
these there are some hot spots or locations where the range is wireless local area network (WLAN), the tiny design makes
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not available because of which we receive weaker signal them ideal for mobile applications such as war driving. The
strength. design of the cantenna is so simple that it is often the first
For this, the objective is to use home made Wi-Fi antenna Wi-Fi experimenters learn to build. Cantennas can
booster antenna. Home made antennas solve the purpose of even be used to increase cell phone range, improve reception
cost, making it cost effective. It provides us with improved and decrease noise. Cantennas can also be used as a satellite
signal strength. To achieve this, we need to study the various dish feed-horn. The 5.5 GHz cantenna dimensions are almost
parameters of booster antenna available in the market, and perfect in the sense that they make a perfect fit for the
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increase the signal strength thereby improving the standard TV satellite dish. The resulting setup is a low-cost
performance of our antenna .The Work can be done on Real high-quality high-gain antenna. Such setups are widely used
–Time basis by testing the performance of Booster antenna in wireless community networks for long-distance Wi-Fi
in the campus at locations where the signal strength is weak. links. Cantennas may be able to be used with other RF
The proposed plans of work for booster antennas include: devices such as wireless security cameras.
 To Design different booster antennas and then
analyze their performance to increase the signal
strength [Manual building and software based
testing].
 To Implement Wi-Fi monitoring application.
 Test booster antennas for internet connectivity.

Proposed System Deals With Following Three Antennas

A. Parabolic Antenna
A parabolic antenna is a high-gain reflector antenna
used for radio, television and data communications, and also

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VRUSHALI.V.KADU et al. / (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES
Vol No. 2, Issue No. 1, 047 - 051

USB or PCI Wi-Fi LAN card

Copper plates and different wires

C. Biquad Antenna
The Biquad antenna is simple to build and offers good
directivity and gain for Point-to-Point communications. It
consists of a two squares of the same size of 1/4 wavelength

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as a radiating element and of a metallic plate or grid as
reflector. This antenna has a beam width of about 70 degrees
and a gain in the order of 10-12 db. It can be used as stand-
alone antenna or as feeder for a Parabolic Dish. The
polarization is such that looking at the antenna from the front,
if the squares are placed side by side the polarization is
vertical.
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V. CONCLUSION
Wireless networks are clear benefits (mobility,
flexibility, ease of installation, low maintenance cost, and
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IV. FLOWCHART
scalability) but also has some disadvantages (use demanding
equipments for operating parameters such as humidity ,
The flowchart shows the process of execution. The
temperature etc). Smart Antennas can be used to achieve
research work is mainly focused on the reducing the cost of
different benefits. The most important is higher network
the booster antenna by manual building and increasing the
capacity. It provides better range or coverage by focusing the
signal strength . Antennas basically are of the two types
energy sent out into the cell, multi-path rejection by
directional antennas and bi-directional antennas .The three
minimizing fading and other undesirable effects of multi-
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antennas as in the proposed scheme , parabolic and the

biquad antennas are bi-directional antennas and cantenna is
an directional antennas , whose main purpose is to increase
the range of the signal in particular direction according to
requirements in db. The research work is basically processed
by enhancing some of the features of the antennas so that it
could be able to effectively increase the signal strength .
These booster antennas are then tested by developing a
software coding and hence the result will be analyzed .
Development Tool:
Microsoft Visual Basic. Net
AirPCap SDK
Hardware Requirement:
Wi-Fi Access point
path propagation. Smart antennas are a solution to capacity
and interference Problems. It also provides some drawbacks
such as, the higher number of antenna elements making up
the small base station antenna array, the higher the available
gain, the larger the size and higher the price. Lower gain
results in reduced size and price. MIMO takes advantage of
multipath propagation to increase throughput,
range/coverage, and reliability. Rather than combating
multipath signals, MIMO puts multipath signals to work
carrying more information. By transmitting multiple signals
containing different information streams over the same
frequency channel, MIMO provides a means of doubling or
tripling spectral efficiency. Wi-Fi signal booster antennas,
also called Wi-Fi signal amplifiers are attached to routers or
access points to boost the signal. Good quality and powerful
Wi-Fi signal amplifiers can increase the signal strength
threefold. Bidirectional Wi-Fi signal boosters increase the

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VRUSHALI.V.KADU et al. / (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES
Vol No. 2, Issue No. 1, 047 - 051

strength of transmitted, as well as received signals. That is,

they work both ways. They boost signal strength by as much
as 600%. Thus the Wi-Fi booster antenna is used in
improving the signal strength by considering the above
mentioned points. It is basically effective in locations where
there is coverage problem in case of mobile or when the
signal strength becomes less as the distance increases .

VI. FUTURE WORK

It includes designing of different Wi-Fi booster

antennas and testing there performance in the real
environment where the signal strength is low .

REFERENCES:

[1] Marius-Constantin popescu, “New Aspect On Wireless Communication

And Network” International Journal Of Communications Issue 2, Volume 3,
2009.

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[2] Pieter Van Rooyen, “The Wireless World Research Forum And Future
Smart Antenna Technology” 2006 IEEE Ninth International Symposium On
Spread Spectrum Techniques And Applications .
[3] Susmita Das, “Smart Antenna Design For Wireless Communication
Using Adaptive Beam-Forming Approach” 2008.
[4] Chris Loadman, “An Overview Of Adaptive Antenna Technologies For
Wireless Communications, Session A3 Communication Networks And
Services Research Conference 2003.
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[5] “Using Mimo-Ofdm Technology To Boost Wireless Lan Performance
Today” , Version 1.0 June 1, 2005.
[6] Richard H. Roy, “Application Of Smart Antenna Technology In
Wireless Communication Systems” , 1997 IEEE.
[7] Alpesh U. Bhobe, “An Overview Of Smart Antenna Technology For
Wireless Communication” 2000 IEEE .
[8] Karim M. Nasr, “Performance Of Different Interpolation Strategies For
An OFDM/MMSE Smart Antenna System In An Indoor WLAN” 2005
IEEE.
[9] C. Borja, “Impact Of The Antenna Technology And The Antenna
Parameters On The Performance Of Mimo Systems” 2003 IEEE
[10] Richard H. Roy, “An Overview Of Smart Antenna Technology And Its
Application To Wireless Communication Systems” 1997 IEEE.
[11] P. Chaipanya, “Enhancement Of Wlan Signal Strength Using
Switched-Beam Single Antenna” 2009 IEEE.
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