Study and simulation of the infrared WLAN IrDA: an alternative to the radio

The dramatic development of radio solutions for wireless communications tends to blur the wider use that can be made of infrared transmissions in a room, a workshop or even a building. For some local applications for which a wireless part often constitutes the end point of global networks, the infrared medium can be a real alternative to the radio medium. Infrareds offer undeniable advantages, and are a technological niche in the field of in-house wireless LAN. Here the characteristics of this technology are illustrated and compared with better known radio solutions. As the world of communications is constantly readjusting to new standards, the essential characteristics of IrDA, the most significant standard are presented. The IrDA standard keeps changing to include new aspects. It now features a set of layers for a complete infrared local network providing the usual functionality of the different OSI layers. Thus, baud rates of IrDA products have increased from 115200bps to 4Mbps, (even 30Mbps) paving the way for future multimedia applications demanding high baud rates. Many new modelisations and simulations with OPNET have facilitated the study and the analysis of this IR standard.