Full Duplex for IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs

With the development of wireless LANs, they are expected to have wide applications not only in traditional home but also in industrial applications. Therefore, the next generation of IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN standard demands higher throughput and lower latency. Full duplex (FD) technology, which allows a device to simultaneously transmit and receive signals on the same channel by cancelling self-interference, is one of the promising solutions to meet those requirements. Feasibility studies for applying FD technology to wireless LAN systems started in IEEE 802.11 standardization. In this article, we provide an overview of the FD mechanism and the technical problems for the realization. Furthermore, we provide the direction of the FD system for wireless LANs in IEEE 802.11 standardization. In addition, we discuss the expected low latency effect of the FD mechanism on the wireless LAN systems based on the direction in IEEE 802.11 standardization.