Design questions 20000m2 warehouse

[MR45EOL]

Prereqs:

Warehouse 20000 m2(not built yet), 12m ceiling height, racks going all the way up to beams.

Clients: iPads or Samsung tablets

Application: Web based, coverage req on ground level only

So a 20000 square meter warehouse with almost all of it covered with racks. An aisle is almost 90m long and 3m wide. Im attaching a quick predictive design I through together in Ekahau with MR76 and ANT-27 along the wall for easiest possible mounting. One antenna for each aisle, only 5ghz planned.

Or course always hard to do predictive with warehouse racks that can either be empty, half filled, or fully stacked with different materials. 

Concerns of course with that many APs close to each other on one wall, around 3m, not narrow enough beam with ANT-27 or will I still be able to handle it with 20mhz channel width and 5ghz?

Will of course be an edge case when running towards the end of the aisle with that kind of distance, didnt go with with MR46E and narrow patch antennas because of price of the antenna.

The APs in the more open area in one end might be able to support a bit towards the end of the aisle.

Am I taking to easy a route with mostly using one wall just to avoid making rods and special mounts to place APs in other places? Will the racks perhaps attenuate less than in the pred design and one doesnt need one AP per aisle? Then I guess I cant have them all one side and have to run every other aisle from the other end and perhaps support with some APs in the middle of some aisle as well. 

Any other suggestions based on Meraki hardware?

[PhilipDAth]

As long as the APs are more than 300mm apart they should be fine.  You are going to get channel overlap, but I'm guessing the bandwidth demands are low because they are using bar code scanners and the like, and not streaming video.

My gut feeling is the coverage towards the end of those aisles is not going to be great.  Maybe not usable.

>Then I guess I cant have them all one side and have to run every other aisle from the other end and perhaps support with some APs in the middle of some aisle as well.

I would be doing this.  And I think you will need some in the middle (probably on the roof).

Whatever you put in, it's going to cost a lot of money, and the customer will expect it to work.  I would not be confident with all of the APs on one end that it would work 100%.  I think it will mostly work but there will be some patches where it doesn't work well.  I would feel pretty confident mixing up the APs as you have suggested, and you won't get the customer coming back and complaining.

[MR45EOL]

Thanks for the input. I was also suggested in another forum to do directional antenna but place it in the middle of the aisle and do a -90 directon in Ekahau, meaning facing straight down to the floor. He suggested a Acceltex-antenna with a more focused beam than ANT-27. Attaching an image how that would look. 

Also ANT-27 placed that way on 12m height seem to provide pretty good coverage in both directions in the aisle.

[PhilipDAth]

Looking at that, it looks one AP on the roof in every second aisle would be enough.

[MR45EOL]

Yes, trying it out in Ekahau it might be enough with doing a bit of zig zag pattern and not placing every AP exactly in the middle. This client would not mind the cost though of one AP in each aisle I dont think.

[rhbirkelund]

I have just been out doing a Sitesurvey in a warehouse with a similar layout.

I was planning on going with either an MR46E/MA-ANT-3-F or MR86/AIR-ANT2513P4M(or MA-ANT-27), and put one down every aisle at alternating ends. 

Lenght down each aisle is max ~30m.

I have not completely decided if this is the way I'll go. Besides, the customer hasn't decided either if they are going Meraki, Cisco Classic or a mixture, yet.

Honestly, before deploying APs, I'd strongly suggest you go onsite to the location, and do at test with whatever AP and Antenna you plan on using, instead of relying on Ekahau.

We use Ekahau ourselves for Sitesurveys, på relying on the builtin Simulation tools, as so far not given me any reliable results. 

Espacially as @PhilipDAth says, the customer is going to use large amounts of money on this, and will expect it to work.

[MR45EOL]

Thanks, good to get input from someone in a similar situation. What do you think about the tip I got above to instead use a directional in the ceiling in the middle of the aisle facing straight down? You dont have as long aisles as I have though, easier mounting on the end of the aisles as well perhaps. Also you might have lower ceiling as well?