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a. Client has associated with a non-preferred band, RSSI is checked if it is above threshold. If it is above threshold, client is disassociated from the band and Steered to preferred band using Pre-association procedure.

• Utilization Threshold for client device which support both 2.4GHz and 5GHz -

a. Assuming, all 5GHz supported devices are directed to connect to 5GHz band initially. When the number of clients connected to 5GHz band is more than the set Utilization threshold, the clients have to be moved from 5GHz to 2.4GHz band to improve network accessibility to connected wireless clients.

Post-association Band Steering using RSSI Threshold

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RSSI which determines the signal strength of the client towards AP, can have a threshold value which will help in directing/deciding as to which band the client needs to be connected to. Signal strength indirectly indicates the distance of the client from AP. It is understood that as RSSI decreases, the distance of client device from the AP increases.

However, there are certain clients which are not capable of connecting to 5GHz band, as they do not support 5GHz.

Approach

Command to obtain Signal Level value for multiple client:

a. save the Mac addresses

iw dev wlan0 <interface name> station dump | grep Station | cut -d ' ' -f2 | sort | uniq

b. check the signal level for a particular Mac address

iw dev wlan0 <interface name> station dump | grep -v "<Mac address>" sed -n -e '/Station <Mac address>/,/Station/ p' | grep signal |cut -d ' ' -f3 | awk '{print $1}'

Command API to obtain the frequency client is associated:iwlist <interface> frequency | grep "Current Frequency" | cut -d ':' -f2 | cut -d ' ' -f1

wifi_getRadioSupportedFrequencyBands

RSSI threshold:

RSSI threshold is set to -100 by default, based on the Real time Box behaviourbehavior.

RSSI range:

-100 to 0 (To Be confirmed)

Signal Strength calculation for multiple wireless clients:

a. save the Mac addresses
iw dev wlan0 station dump | grep Station | cut -d ' ' -f2

b. check the signal level for a particular Mac addressiw dev wlan0 station dump | grep -v "<Mac address>" | grep signal | cut -d ' ' -f3 | awk '{print $1}'

Sequence diagram

Band Steering using Utilization Threshold (To be updated further)

Description

Band Utilization is the number of channel bands occupied by clients. The Utilization threshold is set to a default value. When the Number of Clients connected to 5GHz band are more than the threshold value, the clients have to be steered to 2.4GHz band. This is done to improve the network quality to the connected clients.

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implementation

Architecture

• Layout

Implementation of Band Steering using RSSI Threshold:

Data Model

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• Band Steering feature is limited only to dual/tri band radio capable devices.
• Steering of 5 GHz capable wireless clients can be done only when SSID and security parameters are same for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz.
• Band Steering using RSSI signal works well only for clients capable of connecting to 5GHz. Clients capable of only 2.4GHz will not work.

Future Enhancements

• Band Steering status should be retained even after reboot. Currently, this is not yet using RSSI signal for clients not capable of connecting to 5GHz needs to be implemented.
• Steering of Clients are based on Utilization threshold, RSSI threshold. These use cases need to be implemented.

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