IEEE 802.

11 Overview and Amendments under development

Overview of the 802.11 Working Group

The IEEE 802.11 standard to date

New Amendments: Markets, use cases and key technologies

2025 January
Presenter:

“At lectures, symposia, seminars, or educational courses, an individual presenting information on IEEE standards shall make it clear that his or her views should be considered the personal views of that individual rather than the formal position, explanation, or interpretation of the IEEE.” IEEE-SA Standards Board Operation Manual (subclause 5.9.3)

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IEEE Standards Association

Individual membership Maintaining Initiating the

the Standard Project
7,000+ individual members in 90 countries

Corporate Memberships Gaining Final Mobilizing

390+ member corporations in 23 countries Approval the Working
Group
Standards Developers
Balloting the Drafting the
~20,000 participants; Standard Standard
all interested parties are welcome

January
2025 2
 The IEEE 802.11 Working Group is one of the most active
WGs in 802
 Focus on link and physical layers of the network
stack
 Leverage IETF protocols for upper layers
OSI Reference
Model
IEEE 802
Application Local and Metropolitan Area Networks
Standards Committee (LMSC)

Presentation

Session
802.1 802.22 802.24
802.3 802.15 802.16 802.18 802.21
Higher 802.11 802.19 Wireless Vertical
CSMA/CD Wireless Wireless Radio Media
Transport Layer
Ethernet
Wireless
Specialty Broadband Regulatory
Co-existence Regional App.
Independent Area
LAN WLAN WG TAG
Networks Access TAG Handoff
Protocols Networks
Network

Data Link
IEEE IEEE 802.11 WG Voting Members:
Physical MAC/PHY focus
802 600+
Medium
January
2025 3
IEEE 802.11 Membership
• Membership is at an historic high
Aspira Potential Voter • We shifted from in-person to remote attendance
nt Voter during pandemic
99 52 600+ • This enabled easy attendance from anywhere in
the world
• We now run meetings with both in-person and
remote attendance
• Membership is gained by attendance
• Membership is maintained through attendance
and ballot participation

January 4
Development of the IEEE 802.11 Standard is ongoing since
1997
802.11-1999
802.11-1997
802.11-2012 802.11-2016 802.11-2020
802.11-2003 802.11-2024
802.11-2007

11d 11e 11k 11s 11aa 11aq 11bc

MAC

Intl QoS RRM Mesh Video Pre- Broadcast

Roaming Transport association Services
11h 11u 11v 11ae Discovery
DFS & TPC WIEN WNM 11ak
QoS Mgt
Frames General Link 11ax
11i 11z 11r
Security TDLS Fast High
11ai
Roam Efficiency
11f Fast Initial
11w WLAN
Inter AP Link Setup 11ay
Management Enhanced
Frame Security mmWave
11az
Enhanced
PHY & MAC

11n 11af Positioning

High TV Whitespace 11ba
11a Throughput
11g Wake-up
(>100 Mb/s) 11ac
OFDM 54 Mb/s in 2.4 11p Radio
VHT 11ah 11bb
54 Mb/s in 5 GHz WAVE > 1 Gb/s in 5 Sub-1 GHz Light
GHz
11b 11y GHz
11ad Communicatio
11j
HR/DSSS Contention VHT 11aj ns
11bd
JP bands
11 Mb/s in Based Protocol > 1 Gb/s in 60 China Next Gen V2X
2.4 GHz GHz mmWave
January
2025 5
 New 802.11 Radio technologies are under development to meet expanding
market needs and leverage new technologies. Completed standards

IEEE Std 802.11-2020 Revision project

IEEE Std 802.11ax-2021 – Increased throughput & efficiency in 2.4, 5 (and 6) GHz
bands
IEEE Std 802.11ay-2021 – Support for 20 Gbps in 60 GHz band
IEEE Std 802.11az-2022 – 2nd generation positioning features
IEEE Std 802.11ba-2021 – Wake up radio. Low power IoT applications
IEEE Std 802.11bb-2023 – Light Communications
IEEE Std 802.11bc-2023 – Enhanced Broadcast Service
IEEE Std 802.11bd-2022 – Enhancements for Next Generation V2X
IEEE Std 802.11be-2024 – Enhancements for extremely high throughput (EHT)
IEEE Std 802.11bh-2024 – Operation with Randomized and Changing MAC Addresses
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2025 6
Market demands and new technology drive IEEE 802.11 innovation

• Demand for throughput

• Continuing exponential demand for throughput (802.11be and 802.11bn)
• Most (50-80%, depending on the country) of the world’s mobile data is carried on 802.11
(Wi-Fi) devices
• New usage models / features
• Dense deployments (802.11be), Indoor Location (802.11az, 802.11bk),
• Automotive (802.11bd, AUTO)
• WLAN Sensing (802.11bf)

• Technical capabilities
• Millimetric (42-71 GHz) radios (802.11bq)

• Changes to regulation
• 6 GHz (802.11be)
• Coexistence and radio performance rules (e.g., ETSI BRAN, ITU-R)

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2025 7
IEEE 802.11 Standards Pipeline – January 2025
802.11
-2024

MAC REVmf

AUTO TIG 802.11bi 802.11bh

EDP RCM
WNG 802.11
-2024
802.11bn 802.11bk 802.11be
UHR 320 MHz Pos EHT

ELC SG 802.11bp 802.11bf

AMP SENS

PHY 802.11bq
IMMW SG

Liaison Discussio TIG/Study TG without WG SA Published Published

Topics n Topics groups Approved draftLetter Ballot Ballot Amendment Standard

January
2025 8
New 802.11 Radio technologies are under development to meet expanding
market needs and leverage new technologies.

802.11bf – WLAN Sensing

802.11bi – Enhanced Data Privacy
802.11bk – 320 MHz Positioning
802.11bn – Ultra High Reliability
802.11bp – Ambient Power for IOT
802.11bq – Integrated Milli Metric Wave

ELC – Enhanced Light Communication Study Group

AUTO – Automotive Topic Interest Group
AI / ML – Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning Group

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2025 9
 Wi-Fi standard evolution: 802.11bn is now under
development
Project Industry Defining features
Name
802.11n Wi-Fi 4 Spatial multiplexing, 40 MHz channels,
High Throughput beamforming, A-MPDU
802.11ac Wi-Fi 5 80 MHz & 160 MHz channels, beamforming
Completed Very High Throughput that works
Enabled broad support for 5 GHz band
operation
802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 and Multi-user operation, 320 MHz channels, 6 GHz
Recently High Efficiency 6E band operation
approved
802.11be Wi-Fi 7 Multi-link operation (simultaneous use of
Extremely High multiple channels)
New Throughput
802.11bn Wi-Fi 8* Lower latency, longer range, faster handover
Ultra-High Reliability
*Expected name; will be decided outside of IEEE 802.11
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2025 10
 802.11bn: Ultra High Reliability (UHR)
• Expected to be the basis for Wi-Fi 8
• Currently developing their
specification framework document (SFD) : Expected
improvements:
• Reduce tail latency
• Reduce roaming latency by taking advantage of multi-link
features Longer Range Higher
• Allow access on secondary channel while primary channel Throughpu
is busy t
• AP power save
• Security enhancements, e.g., Control frame protection
Work beyond
• Extend range by reducing sensitivity gap between
11be client
and AP
• Multi-AP coordination
Backwards
Compatibility Positioning

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2025 11
Countries enabling Wi-Fi 6 GHz Operation, see
https://www.wi-fi.org/regulations-enabling-6-ghz-wi-fi (as of
2025-01-06)

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2025 12
802.11bf Sensing
• 802.11bf is developing a
protocol for environmental
sensing
• Measurements that can be
used to monitor
environmental conditions and
changes
• E.g., people movement,
number of people present,
room occupancy, etc. WLAN sensing uses PHY and MAC features of
• Built on sounding IEEE 802.11 stations to obtain measurements that
may be useful to estimate features of objects in
(beamforming) waveforms
an area of interest.
• Does not define use of the – Features = Range, velocity, angular, motion, presence or
measurements; just defines proximity, gesture, etc.
the sounding exchange and – Objects = Human, animal, etc.
transfer of channel state – Area of interest = Room, car, enterprise, etc.
information January
2025 13
802.11bf Sensing
Use cases:

1. Smart home 2. Presence and proximity detection 3. Gesture recognition 4. Gaming control

5. Vital signs / Liveness 6. Location in store 7. Audio with user tracking (Follow-me 8. Sneeze sensing
sound)

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2025 14
802.11bh Randomized and Changing MAC addresses (RCM)
A MAC address is a physical hardware identifier that is assigned by the hardware manufacturer to a
network device (Ethernet, Wireless, and Bluetooth as examples)

To protect user privacy, there is a growing trend to randomize the client device’s MAC address, which
can otherwise be “snooped” by third-parties and used to track the user’s movements and potentially

MAC address randomization can undermine the network’s ability to steer the device to the best
connection point, or to recognize the device and provide differentiated access in secure
environments, pay-for-bandwidth scenarios, etc.
January
2025 15
802.11bh Randomized and Changing MAC addresses (RCM)
Client Steering Use Case
Impacted use cases include:
• Steering a client device to
the best connection point
• Recognizing the device, to
provide personalized home
automation
• Access to pay services, or
differentiated levels of
service
• Customer support and
troubleshooting

January
2025 16
802.11bi Enhanced Data Privacy (EDP)
 Privacy of Password (WPA3)
Privacy of Password Identifier
Defines new mechanisms to improve
user privacy
• Today, IEEE Std 802.11aq-2018
defines MAC address
randomization and specific
requirements to prevent device
tracking using passive observation
of PHY, MAC protocol fields.

• To ensure continued growth and

support for IEEE Std 802.11, this
project is investigating additional
enhancements for user privacy
solutions applicable to 802.11.

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2025 17
 802.11bk 320 MHz Positioning (320P)
• Increase the accuracy of 802.11 based location and proximity determination
• WLAN standardization roadmap towards 0.1m accuracy levels in real world scenarios
• Based on P802.11be 320 MHz channelization and waveforms, reuses the 802.11be PHY
• Takes advantage of WLAN spectrum availability in the <7GHz band and the superior
802.11 link budget
• Attractive for device-to-device, improved self-locating network accuracy, keyless entry
and engine-start use cases

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2025 18
 802.11bp Ambient Power Transmission (AMP)
• AMbient Power (AMP) Communication provisions a mechanism enabling battery-free
applications which is especially important to low-power IoT applications. This will not only
help users within home, enterprise and public access markets, but also assist
manufacturers and operators to provide common components and services for IEEE
802.11 customers

• AMP IoT applications cover various

scenarios:
• Smart manufacturing
• Logistics/warehouse
• Close range AMP tag reading
• Fresh food supply chain
• Smart home
• Smart Grid

January
2025 19
 802.11bp Ambient Power Transmission (AMP)

• 802.11bp defines MAC/PHY enhancements from mainstream 802.11 standards and

amendments to provide an ambient power communication solution in WLAN by:
• defining ambient power transmission in both S1G and 2.4 GHz bands.
• defining wireless power transmission protocol in S1G
• supporting both bistatic and monostatic transmission
• defining mechanisms for coexistence between 802.11bp compliant devices and legacy
802.11 devices.
• A technical report on AMP in WLAN was developed by an earlier AMP group.

January
2025 20
 802.11bq Integrated mmWave (IMMW)

• Expected to start work as task group in February 2025

• Simplify 42-71 GHz band operation to reduce implementation cost
• Previous generations (802.11ad/ay/aj) assumed stand alone operation
• Re-design with multi-band support in mind
• Improvements expected:
• More architectural reuse from low band PHY
• Eliminate control PHY by taking advantage of multi-link; e.g., sector sweep beamforming directed
through low band channel
• This project is particularly relevant to China where 6 GHz band operation is not available

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2025 21
 802.11 AUTOmotive group
• The AUTO TIG is developing a report on the automotive use of Wi-Fi
• The automotive industry wants to use Wi-Fi opportunistically to
• Update software, maps, etc.
• Get updates on traffic conditions
• Serve internet connectivity to occupants using Wi-Fi
• Connect to mobile devices
• The report will provide
• Use cases and requirements
• Key performance indicators
• Technical approaches and 802.11 standard gaps in the areas
such as protocols in association & authentication,
seamless AP handover,
optimized roaming algorithm etc.
• Alternative solutions

January
2025 22
 802.11 Enhanced Light Communications (ELC) group
• IEEE Std 802.11bb-2023 added light communications (LC) to
802.11
• The ELC study group is preparing a project outline to
enhance this work
• For example,
• Add multi-link support
• Support for underwater operation
• With approval a task group is expected to start work in May
2025

January
2025 23
 802.11 AI / ML Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning
group
• Use of AI/ML for 802.11 applications is an active
area of work in the research community.

• Current applications focus on performance

improvement parameter selection for channel
access control and link adaptation, multi-user
parameters, channel usage
Possible observations:
Current SNR levels, historical
• Focus of the 802.11 AIML group is to: SNR levels, camera images, etc.
• Describe use cases for Artificial
Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) applicability Machine
Learning
in 802.11 systems and investigate the technical
feasibility of features enabling support of AI/ML.

Actions:
Beam sector selection
AP

January
2025 24
 Thank You

Questions ?

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2025 25