A question about learning 802.11

Hello, everyone,

I'm a college student participating in GSoC this summer, and my project is
to add some interface mode in the 802.11 dummy driver. This is my wiki
page:
https://wiki.freebsd.org/SummerOfCode2022Projects/AddStaHostapAndAdhocModeToWtapWlanSimulator

During GSoC, I have learned much about 802.11 specification and the
implementation of net80211. I'm looking forward to helping FreeBSD support
some features of the new 802.11 PHY or some features of the specific
standard like 802.11h TPC and DFS.

I'm afraid of not understanding 802.11 PHY. Most of my work on GSoC is in
802.11 MAC, and I know how to define the rate and frequency channel in
device drivers. But when I read some books to learn about 802.11a/b/g PHY,
I found that I have been messing up with a lot of physical concepts and
even math. Even when I want to know just the PLCP framing, I can't escape
the shadow of needing to know physics. Not to mention PMD, it has far more
physics concepts in it.

My question is, if I want to learn the work net80211 has to do to support
modes like 802.11n/ac, do I need to know what exactly the physical layer
has done? (I'm majoring in computer science, and I just want to write some
codes to help net80211)

Thank you for reading the whole question!