Investigation of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) to Enhance Wi-Fi Networks in University Campus

As Wi-Fi networks become integral to university campuses, traditional management frameworks exhibit operational inefficiencies. This study gives a detailed set of research solutions for this field. We used a simulator to test these solutions, checking six things: throughput, latency, jitter, packet loss, SNR, and energy use. We tested what would happen when things went wrong in a setup with 100 access points and 500 users. The results suggest that networks improved with SDN had an 84.6% rise in average throughput and a 39.3% drop in latency when compared to regular Wi-Fi. Jitter went down by 0.15 ms, packet loss peaks decreased by 3.7%, and average SNR went up by 4 dB. The EMA scheduler reached a fairness index above 0.99 in five minutes, and access point energy use decreased by 13%. These results point to the SDWAN’s ability to allocate bandwidth well, keep QoS/QoE consistent, and change to fit campus environments. This research gives a useful structure for putting these solutions into a real network.