Use of commercial Access Point employing spatial diversity in a Distributed Antenna Network with different fiber lengths

A distributed antenna system (DAS) with two remote antenna units (RAUs) fed by a single access point (AP) using different MMF lengths is demonstrated using vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) and PIN photodiodes. Direct intensity modulation and direct detection (IM-DD) were employed in the system. The AP employs spatial diversity. Throughput measurements of the distributed IEEE802.11g signal were carried out at different locations in an office and indicated that high throughputs could be maintained even when the fiber length difference between the two RAUs was 200 m. These results are compared with throughput measurements taken when only a single port of the AP is used to drive the RAUs, that is, without making use of the spatial diversity. The results show a significant improvement in performance with spatial diversity.