Structure and performance of the HIPERLAN/2 physical layer

At present, standards for broadband wireless multimedia communications in the 5 GHz band are being developed in Europe as well as in the USA and Japan. HIPERLAN/2 is an upcoming standard which is being specified by the ETSI Project BRAN and is intended to be finished in April 2000. The physical layers of the three systems will be well-harmonized whereas the upper layer protocols are different. In this paper, the concepts and parameters of the physical layer of HIPERLAN/2 are described. According to the harmonization with the American and the Japanese system similarities and differences are pointed out. Furthermore, exemplary performance results are included and discussed.