CN117979280A

CN117979280A - Roaming control method, roaming control device, network equipment and storage medium

Info

Publication number: CN117979280A
Application number: CN202410173167.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 张润丰; 刘国庆
Original assignee: TP Link Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: TP Link Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2024-02-05
Filing date: 2024-02-05
Publication date: 2024-05-03

Abstract

The application discloses a roaming control method, a roaming control device, network equipment and a storage medium. The method is applied to a current AP, namely an AP of a current associated STA, and comprises the following steps: under the condition that the link quality between the STA and the current AP meets a preset quality abnormal condition, sending a cooperative monitoring instruction to other APs in a network where the current AP is located so as to request the other APs to start monitoring the STA; receiving a monitoring result fed back by a candidate AP, wherein the monitoring result is used for describing the signal quality between the STA and the candidate AP, and the candidate AP is the other AP agreeing to cooperative monitoring; and determining roaming control decision of the STA based on the monitoring result. Compared with the scheme of continuous AP monitoring adopted in the prior art, the scheme can dynamically monitor according to the need, so that the waste of AP resources can be reduced, and the influence on the communication performance of equipment is further reduced.

Description

Roaming control method, roaming control device, network equipment and storage medium

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of wireless networks, and in particular, to a roaming control method, a roaming control device, a network device, and a computer readable storage medium.

Background

In order to solve various problems existing in the conventional roaming technology, a zero roaming technology is currently proposed, which enables Stations (STAs) to be always covered and served by the same BSS when moving between different physical APs by virtualizing the same Basic service set (Basic SERVICE SET, BSS) on each physical Access Point (AP). In the zero roaming technique, the roaming control decision is made by the AP end. To assist the STA's current associated AP in making timely and correct roaming decisions, each AP within the network is required to monitor the STA and aggregate the monitoring results, a process also known as co-monitoring. Currently, a common strategy is continuous monitoring, that is, each AP starts cooperative monitoring immediately after STA association is successful, and after that, each AP keeps monitoring state for the STA. Since the continuous monitoring of each AP does not stop during the STA association period, the AP resources may be wasted, which affects the communication performance of the device.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a roaming control method, a roaming control device, network equipment and a computer readable storage medium, which can reduce the waste of AP resources and further reduce the influence on the communication performance of the equipment.

In a first aspect, the present application provides a roaming control method, where the roaming control method is applied to a current AP, and the current AP is an AP of a current association STA, and the roaming control method includes:

Under the condition that the link quality between the STA and the current AP meets the preset quality abnormal condition, sending a collaborative monitoring instruction to other APs in the network where the current AP is located, wherein the collaborative monitoring instruction is used for requesting the other APs to start monitoring the STA;

receiving a monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP, wherein the monitoring result is used for describing the signal quality between the STA and the candidate AP, and the candidate AP is other APs agreeing to cooperatively monitor;

And determining roaming control decision for the STA based on the monitoring result.

In a second aspect, the present application provides a roaming control device, where the roaming control device is applied to a current AP, and the current AP is an AP of a current association STA, and the roaming control device includes:

The cooperative module is used for sending a cooperative monitoring instruction to other APs in the network where the current AP is located under the condition that the link quality between the STA and the current AP meets the preset quality abnormal condition, wherein the cooperative monitoring instruction is used for requesting the other APs to start monitoring the STA;

The receiving module is used for receiving a monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP, wherein the monitoring result is used for describing the signal quality between the STA and the candidate AP, and the candidate AP is other APs agreeing to cooperative monitoring;

and the control module is used for determining roaming control decisions for the STA based on the monitoring result.

In a third aspect, the present application provides a network device comprising a memory, a processor and a computer program stored in the memory and executable on the processor, the processor implementing the steps of the method of the first aspect when executing the computer program.

In a fourth aspect, the present application provides a computer readable storage medium storing a computer program which, when executed by a processor, performs the steps of the method of the first aspect.

Compared with the prior art, the application has the beneficial effects that: the scheme of the application does not require other APs to always keep the cooperative monitoring of the STA, but triggers the cooperative monitoring of other APs on the STA only when the link quality of the STA and the current AP is abnormal. In this way, the other APs may not turn on the co-monitoring as a resident function, thereby saving resources of the other APs and reducing as much as possible the adverse effects of co-monitoring on the device performance of the other APs.

It will be appreciated that the advantages of the second to fourth aspects may be found in the relevant description of the first aspect and are not repeated here.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, the drawings that are needed in the embodiments or the description of the prior art will be briefly introduced below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present application, and that other drawings can be obtained according to these drawings without inventive effort for a person skilled in the art.

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of an implementation flow of a roaming control method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of interaction among an STA, a current AP and other APs in a roaming control method according to an embodiment of the present application;

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a power-on initialization stage in a zero roaming process according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a detection discovery phase in a zero roaming process according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of an initial association phase in a zero roaming process according to an embodiment of the present application;

Fig. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of a roaming control device according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a network device according to an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

In the following description, for purposes of explanation and not limitation, specific details are set forth such as the particular system architecture, techniques, etc., in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments of the present application. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that the present application may be practiced in other embodiments that depart from these specific details. In other instances, detailed descriptions of well-known systems, devices, circuits, and methods are omitted so as not to obscure the description of the present application with unnecessary detail.

In order to illustrate the technical scheme provided by the application, the following description is made by specific embodiments.

In order to solve the problems of the conventional roaming technique, a zero roaming technique has been proposed. In the zero roaming technique, the roaming decision is made by the AP side. However, the current association AP of the STA only knows the signal strength of interaction between the STA and the local AP, and does not know the signal strength of interaction between the STA and other APs in the network, that is, does not know the positional relationship between the STA and other APs in the network, so that the AP end cannot decide whether roaming is needed or not, and cannot select the roaming target AP.

Based on this, in the moving process of the STA, in order to grasp the positional relationship between the STA and other APs in the network and help the AP end make a timely and correct roaming decision, other APs in the network are required to monitor the STA and collect the monitoring results, which is also called "collaborative monitoring".

Combining the basic principle and the process of the zero roaming technology, two control modes, namely a central control mode and a distributed control mode, are mainly available at present. The following is a brief description of the collaborative monitoring process in these two control modes:

In a system architecture corresponding to the central control mode, there are central control devices that manage a plurality of APs in addition to the plurality of APs. Specifically, each AP performs cooperative monitoring on an accessed STA, that is, each AP receives an uplink message sent by the STA, extracts information such as a received signal strength indicator (RECEIVED SIGNAL STRENGTH Indication, RSSI) from the uplink message, and periodically reports a monitoring result to the central control device. Finally, the central control apparatus may establish a list of optional APs for each STA and decide whether roaming is required and select a roaming target AP. It can be understood that in the central control mode, the central control device is a summarizer of monitoring results, a roaming decision-maker and a roaming executor.

The technical problem brought by this central control mode is: if the reporting frequency of each AP is low, the roaming decision of the central control equipment to the STA is not timely, and the STA is continuously lost or even dropped when serious; otherwise, if the reporting frequency of each AP is higher, the CPU processing load of the central control device is larger.

In the system architecture corresponding to the distributed control mode, there is no central control device any more, but only a plurality of APs, where each AP needs to take on a part of management and control tasks. Specifically, each AP receives the uplink message sent by the accessed STA and extracts the information such as RSSI from the uplink message, but only the currently associated AP of the STA will perform an ACK response, and other APs are only responsible for monitoring. Finally, the current associated AP may request monitoring results from other APs and decide whether roaming is required and select a roaming target AP according to replies from other APs. It can be appreciated that in the distributed control mode, the currently associated AP is a summarizer of monitoring results, a roaming decision-maker, and a roaming executor.

Since the collaborative monitoring in the distributed control mode can solve the technical problem caused by the collaborative monitoring in the central control mode, the distributed control mode is currently preferred to be selected to realize the zero roaming technology. However, currently, a continuous monitoring policy is adopted, whether it is a cooperative monitoring in a distributed control mode or a cooperative monitoring in a central control mode, specifically: after the STA is successfully associated, each AP immediately starts collaborative monitoring, and each AP always keeps a monitoring state for the STA no matter how the link quality of the STA and the current associated AP is; that is, collaborative monitoring will be turned on as a resident function. This may not only result in each AP cooperatively monitoring the STA in an unnecessary situation, but also affect the communication performance (e.g., throughput) of the device to some extent, etc. Based on this, the application provides a roaming control method, a roaming control device, a network device and a computer storage medium, which adjust cooperative monitoring to be a very resident function, and trigger cooperative monitoring only when necessary, thereby reducing the waste of AP resources and reducing the negative influence of cooperative monitoring on the device performance of the AP.

In order to illustrate the technical scheme provided by the embodiment of the application, the following description is made by specific embodiments.

The roaming control method provided by the embodiment of the application can be applied to the current AP. Wherein, the current AP refers to: the AP of the currently associated STA. The STA may be a normal STA or a custom STA, which is not limited herein. Referring to fig. 1, the implementation flow of the roaming control method is described in detail as follows:

And step 101, under the condition that the link quality between the STA and the current AP meets the preset quality abnormal condition, sending a cooperative monitoring instruction to other APs in the network where the current AP is located.

Considering that the current AP may actually associate with a plurality of STAs, in the embodiment of the present application, the number of STAs is not limited. For each STA with which a current AP is associated, the link quality between the STA and the current AP may change as the STA moves. Based on this, the current AP may periodically acquire the link quality between the STA and the current AP, and compare the link quality with a preset quality anomaly condition. The quality abnormal condition is set based on roaming scene, i.e. the quality abnormal condition is the triggering condition of zero roaming.

In some examples, link quality may include, but is not limited to, network rate, network packet loss rate, RSSI, and the like; based on this, the quality exception condition set by the current AP may include at least one of: the network rate is smaller than a preset rate threshold; the network packet loss rate is larger than a preset packet loss rate threshold value; and the RSSI is smaller than a preset RSSI threshold.

When the link quality between the STA and the current AP meets the quality abnormality condition, the distance between the STA and the current AP can be considered to be far to a certain extent, and the STA has roaming requirement. At this time, the current AP may send a cooperative monitoring instruction to other APs in the network, where the cooperative monitoring instruction carries a Media Access Control (MAC) address of the STA, and may be used to request the other APs to start monitoring the STA. The network where the current AP is located can be a mesh network; or a network built based on the capwap protocol; or a network built based on a private protocol defined by a device manufacturer, and the embodiment of the application does not limit the network where the current AP is located. It can be appreciated that the cooperative monitoring function is not turned on in the default state of other APs; that is, other APs do not monitor the STA by default in the case where no cooperative monitoring instruction is received.

In particular, the other APs may be all other APs; or the other AP may be another AP, which is not limited by the embodiment of the present application. For example, in the case of excessive APs included in the network, considering that the STA will typically roam only to nearby APs, the current AP may select other APs within a certain range through a topology learning mechanism or the like, so that the other APs that are too far away need not participate in the subsequent process.

In some examples, the current AP may send the cooperative monitoring instruction to all other APs by broadcasting; or the current AP can also send the cooperative monitoring instruction to other designated partial APs in a unicast mode, and the embodiment of the application does not limit the sending mode of the cooperative monitoring instruction.

And 102, receiving a monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP, wherein the monitoring result is used for describing the signal quality between the STA and the candidate AP.

For any other AP that receives the co-monitoring instruction, it may determine whether to agree to co-monitor according to its own situation, and the AP that agrees to co-monitor may immediately start monitoring the STA. In order to distinguish between an AP agreeing to co-monitoring and an AP disagreeing to co-monitoring, the embodiment of the present application refers to an AP agreeing to co-monitoring as a candidate AP and an AP disagreeing to co-monitoring as a non-candidate AP.

It can be appreciated that, whether the AP is a candidate AP or a non-candidate AP, after receiving the cooperative monitoring instruction sent by the current AP, a reply message is returned to the current AP. The reply message may be an ACK response, or may be a specific type of message that carries a state of cooperative monitoring, for example, start cooperative monitoring or reject cooperative monitoring, which is not limited herein.

For the candidate AP, the parameters such as RSSI for indicating the signal quality between the STA and the candidate AP may be obtained by receiving the uplink packet of the STA, so as to monitor the STA and obtain a corresponding monitoring result. That is, the monitoring result may be used to describe the signal quality between the STA and the candidate AP. The candidate AP may feed back the monitoring result to the current AP, so that the current AP knows the monitoring result of the candidate AP on the STA (i.e., knows the signal quality between the STA and the candidate AP).

It should be noted that, although both the candidate AP and the current AP will receive the uplink message sent by the STA, only the BSSID of the current AP coincides with the BSSID carried in the uplink message of the STA, so only the current AP will reply to the ACK with respect to the uplink message sent by the STA; that is, the candidate AP does not reply any data to the STA during the monitoring of the STA.

And step 103, determining roaming control decision for the STA based on the monitoring result.

The current AP may determine a roaming control decision for the STA by using the monitoring results fed back by each candidate AP as a decision basis, including but not limited to: whether roaming is required, and a roaming AP selected when roaming is required. Specifically, the current AP may determine whether to trigger roaming to the STA based on the obtained monitoring result, link quality of the current AP and the STA, network performance of the current AP, and network performance of the candidate AP, and determine a roaming AP among the candidate APs in case of triggering roaming to the STA. The network performance includes, but is not limited to, network load, wireless environment, etc., where the wireless environment is represented by the AP by statistical information of its own channel, including, but not limited to, parameters such as channel occupancy rate and channel interference, etc., which are not limited herein.

In some embodiments, the foregoing describes that the candidate APs monitor the STA by receiving the uplink message sent by the STA, but when the STA is in the power saving mode or the current traffic of the STA is low, the STA will not send the uplink message to each candidate AP, so that the monitoring of each candidate AP fails. Based on this, the current AP may also send a message to the STA after step 101. The message is used for triggering the STA to send the uplink message. Specifically, the current AP may send the message only once to the STA; or the current AP may send the message to the STA several times in succession. Correspondingly, the STA can send the uplink message once after receiving the message each time; or the STA may also respond to the message sent once by the current AP to send a periodic uplink message, which is not limited by the embodiment of the present application.

In some application scenarios, the message for triggering the STA to send the uplink message may be a Request message (Request); in this regard, the STA may send a Response message (Response) to the AP. In other application scenarios, the message for triggering the STA to send the uplink message may also be a notification message (Notify); in this regard, the STA may send a Report message (Report) to the AP.

It can be understood that, under the condition that the STA is in the power saving mode, the STA can report in time through the message provided by the embodiment of the present application; specifically, the STA may exit the power saving mode, may briefly exit the power saving mode (for example, exit the power saving mode and report, and then re-enter the power saving mode), or remain in the power saving mode, which is not limited in the embodiment of the present application, as long as the STA can send the uplink message in response to the message. Therefore, each candidate AP can receive the uplink message sent by the STA during the cooperative monitoring period, and the success rate of the cooperative monitoring is further ensured.

In some embodiments, the current AP may preset a first duration, and execute a subsequent operation based on the first duration as a criterion, specifically: under the condition that the monitoring results in the first time period are all empty, the candidate AP can be considered to fail to monitor the STA; that is, the candidate AP fails to obtain any valid information by monitoring at this first time. The above situation is likely caused by the STA being in a power saving mode, or the current traffic of the STA being low, when the current AP needs to send a message to the STA.

In some embodiments, after the STA enters the power saving mode, the STA actively notifies the current AP that it has entered the power saving mode; or the current AP judges whether the STA enters the power saving mode or not through other modes, so that the current AP can trigger the STA to report by aiming at the situation that the STA is in the power saving mode in time after sending the collaborative monitoring instruction to other APs. Of course, the current AP may send the message to the STA directly after sending the cooperative monitoring instruction to the other APs without any judgment. In the embodiment of the application, the sending time of the message is not limited.

In some embodiments, the current AP may actively or passively receive the monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP, and the following two application scenarios are respectively described below:

In an application scenario where the current AP actively receives the monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP, step 102 may be specifically expressed as: firstly, a current AP sends a reply instruction to a candidate AP, wherein the reply instruction is used for indicating the candidate AP to feed back a monitoring result; and then, receiving a monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP based on the reply instruction.

Specifically, the current AP may broadcast the reply command, or unicast the reply command to the candidate AP; and, considering that there is a possibility that the candidate AP monitors a plurality of different STAs, the reply command may carry the MAC address of the STA of interest to the current AP. As feedback to the reply instruction, the candidate AP may feed back the monitoring result to the current AP, where the information carried by the monitoring result includes, but is not limited to, parameters for characterizing signal quality, such as an RSSI average value of the STA during cooperative monitoring, in addition to the MAC address of the STA, which is not described herein.

In an application scenario where the current AP passively receives the monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP, step 102 may be specifically expressed as: and receiving a monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP due to overtime monitoring.

Specifically, the preset second duration may be carried in the cooperative monitoring instruction sent by the current AP. The second time length is the basis for judging overtime monitoring; that is, timeout monitoring refers to: the monitoring duration of the candidate AP to the STA reaches the second duration. For the candidate AP, starting timing of monitoring duration when the cooperative monitoring is started after the cooperative monitoring instruction is received; and stopping collaborative monitoring when the monitored duration obtained by timing reaches the second duration. The candidate AP may feed back the monitoring result to the current AP, where the information carried by the monitoring result includes, but is not limited to, parameters for characterizing signal quality, such as an RSSI average of the STA during cooperative monitoring, in addition to the MAC address of the STA, which is not described herein.

In order to facilitate understanding of the roaming control method proposed in the embodiment of the present application, referring to fig. 2, fig. 2 shows an interaction schematic among the STA, the current AP and other APs. It should be noted that, in fig. 2, the monitoring results fed back by the candidate AP are both shown in active or passive mode by the current AP, but in practical application, both application scenarios will not generally occur during a cooperative monitoring period. A brief description of this fig. 2 is provided below:

The STA is originally associated with AP 1. The movement of the STA triggers an RSSI lower violation (i.e., the RSSI is less than the preset RSSI threshold) so that AP1 sends a cooperative monitoring instruction to AP2 and AP 3. After receiving the cooperative monitoring instruction, the AP2 and the AP3 send a response message to the AP1 and start cooperative monitoring.

The AP1 may then unicast a message to the STA triggering the STA to send an uplink message, so that the STA sends the uplink message. All of the AP1, AP2 and AP3 can receive the uplink message sent by the STA, but only the AP1 makes an ACK response, and other APs (i.e. AP2 and AP 3) only monitor and extract information.

The AP1 may send reply instructions to the AP2 and the AP3 to actively request the monitoring results of the STAs; in response to the reply instruction, AP2 and AP3 may feed back the monitoring result to AP 1. Thus, AP1 may make a roaming control decision.

If the AP1 does not actively request the monitoring results from the AP2 and the AP3 all the time, the AP2 and the AP3 may stop monitoring after the monitoring time period reaches the upper limit (i.e. the second time period) specified by the AP1, and feed back the monitoring results to the AP 1.

It will be appreciated that the foregoing is a detailed description of the collaborative monitoring phase in a zero roaming technique employing a distributed control mode. In the actual application scene, the zero roaming technology specifically relates to the following stages: a power-on initialization stage, a detection discovery stage, an initial association stage, a cooperative monitoring stage and a roaming switching stage. These stages are each briefly described as follows:

Referring to fig. 3, fig. 3 shows a schematic diagram of a power-up initialization phase. In the power-on initialization phase: each AP in the network generates each BSSID according to own BSSID generation rule, and creates corresponding BSS based on each BSSID. After the power-on initialization is completed, BSSs created by the APs are started and disclosed outwards, and wireless service is provided for STA access.

Specifically, different APs of the same model typically use the same set of BSSID generation rules, and one possible BSSID generation rule is set forth below: when the AP leaves the factory, the equipment MAC is written in, and the equipment MAC is unique; on the basis of the equipment MAC, generating possible BSSIDs and creating corresponding BSSs, specifically: the designated bit in the device MAC is modified to a different value, and the values of the remaining bits remain unchanged, thereby generating a plurality of possible BSSIDs for the AP, and maintained in the BSSID library for the AP. In some examples, the specified bit may be a number of bits in MAC [3], which embodiments of the application do not limit; it can be understood that, regarding the AP itself, modifying its MAC [3] to different values to generate different BSSIDs can ensure that the same BSSID will not be generated in one AP; the device MAC is unique for different APs, and only the MAC [3] of the device MAC is modified on the basis of the respective device MAC, so that the different APs can not generate the same BSSID (the situation that the device MAC of the different APs is identical in bytes except for the MAC [3] is generally avoided).

In some examples, there are three APs in the network, AP1, AP2 and AP3, respectively. When the three are powered on and initialized, the AP1 generates the BSSID1 according to the own BSSID generation rule and creates a corresponding BSS1, the AP2 generates the BSSID2 according to the own BSSID generation rule and creates a corresponding BSS2, and the AP3 generates the BSSID3 according to the own BSSID generation rule and creates a corresponding BSS3. Thus, BSSs under each AP operate with different BSSIDs.

In the probe discovery phase: each AP broadcasts Beacon by each BSSID; subsequently, each AP that receives the Probe Request (Probe Request) sent by the STA replies with a Probe Response (Probe Response) with its own BSSID. In this way, the STA can identify a plurality of networks having different BSSIDs for each AP.

In some examples, referring to fig. 4, fig. 4 gives an example of a probe discovery phase. For passive scanning, the STA will receive beacons broadcast by AP1 as BSSID1, AP2 as BSSID2, and AP3 as BSSID 3; for active scanning, after the STA sends Probe requests to each AP, it will receive Probe responses returned by AP1 with BSSID1, probe responses returned by AP2 with BSSID2, and Probe responses returned by AP3 with BSSID 3. Finally, the STA recognizes that in the current network environment, there are three networks identified as BSSID1, BSSID2, and BSSID3, respectively.

In the initial association stage, there are an association interaction sub-stage, an association notification sub-stage and a STA binding BSSID sub-stage in sequence.

In the association interaction sub-stage, the STA may select a BSSID with better network quality according to its policy, and the STA may send an authentication Request (i.e. Auth Request) and an association Request (i.e. Assoc Request) to the corresponding AP successively based on the selected BSSID. Although there are multiple APs in the network that can receive the Auth/Assoc Request sent by the STA, only the AP that conforms to the BSSID carried by the message can make a corresponding response reply and process.

In the association notification sub-phase, after the STA is successfully associated with the AP, the AP may send an association notification to other APs in the network to synchronize association information of the STA to the other APs. Specifically, the association notification may be broadcast, or may be unicast to the designated other AP; and it may be an IEEE1905 message, or other types of messages; in addition, the association information carried by the STA may be mainly static information of the STA, including but not limited to: MAC, capability set (Capability), pairwise temporary key (PAIRWISE TRANSIENT KEY, PTK), and group temporary key (Group Temporal Key, GTK), etc., without limitation.

In the stage of binding BSSID by STA, BSSID selected by STA is unique to the STA, for example, beacon carrying the BSSID is changed into unicast, so that AP can not announce to external network by the BSSID in the whole network, and can not reply with the BSSID to other STA's Probe Request and Auth messages. And, the STA is one-to-one bound with the BSSID it accesses, and when the STA roams between different physical APs, the STA will always use its one-to-one bound BSSID to interact with the physical AP that is actually associated. It will be appreciated that the STA will use the BSSID bound thereto for subsequent data interactions with the associated AP. Although a plurality of APs in the network receive the uplink message sent by the STA, only the AP (i.e., the associated AP) that matches the BSSID carried by the uplink message can reply to the ACK.

For the associated AP of the STA, it will also select an unused new BSSID in the BSSID library to create a corresponding BSS, and use the new BSSID to broadcast Beacon and reply to the messages sent by other STAs to provide wireless access service for possible new STAs.

In some examples, referring to fig. 5, fig. 5 gives an example of an initial association phase. Suppose that the STA is located within the coverage of AP 1. The STA is likely to select BSSID1 with better network quality from three networks according to its own policy, and send Auth/Assoc Request to the corresponding AP1 with BSSID 1. All three APs will receive Auth/Assoc Request sent by the STA, but only AP1 coincides with BSSID1 carried by the message, so only AP1 will construct the corresponding message to respond. The STA then proceeds with authentication interactions with the AP1 using BSSID1 in extensible authentication protocol (Extensible authentication protocol, EAPOL) messages. After the STA selects the BSSID1 access under the AP1 by itself, the association AP of the STA (i.e. AP 1) will send association notification carrying association information of the STA to the AP2 and the AP3, so as to perform information synchronization. The AP1 changes the BSSID1 to be unique to the STA, for example, changes the Beacon carrying the BSSID1 to be unicast, and does not reply with the BSSID1 to the Probe Request and Auth messages of other STAs. BSSID1 binds with the STA and when the STA roams to other physical APs (e.g., AP2 or AP 3), BSSID1 also moves with the STA. The AP1 may generate or select a new BSSID, for example, BSSID4, and broadcast a Beacon and reply to the Probe Request and Auth of other STAs by using the BSSID4 to provide wireless access service for the new STA.

The cooperative monitoring stage has been described previously and will not be described here again.

In the roaming handover phase: firstly, the current AP can send a roaming request message to the roaming AP, and the roaming AP can sequentially perform BSS copy and STA node copy after receiving the roaming request message. The roaming AP may then send a ready-to-roam message to the current AP to inform the current AP that it is ready for pre-roaming. The associated AP may then send a data flow handoff message to the roaming target AP to effect handoff of the data flow between the current AP and the roaming AP. Finally, the current AP sequentially carries out STA node destruction and BSS destruction, and sends a roaming end message to the roaming target AP so as to inform the roaming AP that the roaming switching process is currently completed. To this end, a complete zero roaming procedure is completed.

It should be noted that, each AP proposed in the embodiment of the present application is a network device having an AP function in a broad sense, and is essentially a creator of a wireless network. In some examples, the AP may be a wireless AP or a wireless router, which is not limited by the embodiments of the present application.

As can be seen from the above, in the embodiment of the present application, the other APs are not required to keep the cooperative monitoring on the STA all the time, but only trigger the cooperative monitoring on the STA by the other APs when the link quality between the STA and the current AP is abnormal. In this way, the other APs may not turn on the signal strength monitoring function as a resident function, reducing as much as possible the adverse impact of co-monitoring on the device performance of the other APs. In addition, a timing mechanism is designed in the embodiment, so that the abnormal problem of the loss of the interactive message can be effectively solved, and the situations that the cooperative monitoring function is normally open and the current AP cannot acquire the monitoring result due to the loss of the interactive message are avoided.

Corresponding to the roaming control method provided above, the embodiment of the application also provides a roaming control device. The roaming control device is applied to a current AP, which is an AP of a currently associated STA. As shown in fig. 6, the roaming control device 6 includes:

The cooperative module 601 is configured to send a cooperative monitoring instruction to other APs in a network where the current AP is located when a link quality between the STA and the current AP meets a preset quality exception condition, where the cooperative monitoring instruction is used to request the other APs to start monitoring the STA;

The receiving module 602 is configured to receive a monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP, where the monitoring result is used to describe signal quality between the STA and the candidate AP, and the candidate AP is another AP agreeing to co-monitoring;

a control module 603 is configured to determine a roaming control decision for the STA based on the monitoring result.

In some embodiments, the roaming control device 6 further comprises:

The sending module is configured to send a message to the STA after the coordination module 601 sends a coordination monitor instruction to other APs in the network where the current AP is located, where the message is used to request the STA to send an uplink message.

In some embodiments, the sending module is specifically configured to send a message to the STA when the monitoring results within the preset first duration are all empty.

In some embodiments, the receiving module 602 includes:

The sending unit is used for sending a reply instruction to the candidate AP, wherein the reply instruction is used for indicating the candidate AP to feed back the monitoring result;

and the first receiving unit is used for receiving the monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP based on the reply instruction.

In some embodiments, the collaborative monitoring instruction carries a preset second duration; a receiving module 602 comprising:

The second receiving unit is configured to receive a monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP due to timeout monitoring, where the timeout monitoring refers to: the monitoring duration of the candidate AP to the STA reaches the second duration.

In some embodiments, the control module 603 includes:

A first determining unit, configured to determine whether to trigger roaming to the STA based on the monitoring result, the link quality, the network performance of the current AP, and the network performance of the candidate AP;

And a second determining unit for determining roaming APs among the candidate APs in case of triggering roaming to the STA.

In some embodiments, the link quality includes: network rate, network packet loss rate and received signal strength indicator RSSI; the quality anomaly condition includes at least one of:

the network rate is smaller than a preset rate threshold;

the network packet loss rate is larger than a preset packet loss rate threshold value;

the RSSI is less than a preset RSSI threshold.

Corresponding to the roaming control method provided above, the embodiment of the present application further provides a network device, where the network device is a current AP, that is, an AP of a current association STA. Referring to fig. 7, the network device 7 in the embodiment of the present application includes: memory 701, one or more processors 702 (only one shown in fig. 7) and computer programs stored on memory 701 and executable on the processors. Wherein: the memory 701 is used for storing software programs and units, and the processor 702 executes various functional applications and data processing by running the software programs and units stored in the memory 701 to obtain resources corresponding to the preset events. Specifically, the processor 702 implements the following steps by running the above-described computer program stored in the memory 701:

Assuming that the above is a first possible implementation manner, in a second possible implementation manner provided by the first possible implementation manner as a basis, after sending the cooperative monitoring instruction to other APs in the network where the current AP is located, the processor 702 implements the following steps by running the above-mentioned computer program stored in the memory 701:

And sending a message to the STA, wherein the message is used for requesting the STA to send an uplink message.

In a third possible implementation provided by the second possible implementation as set forth above, the sending a message to the STA includes:

And sending a message to the STA under the condition that monitoring results in the preset first duration are all empty.

In a fourth possible implementation manner provided by the first possible implementation manner, receiving a monitoring result fed back by a candidate AP includes:

Sending a reply instruction to the candidate AP, wherein the reply instruction is used for indicating the candidate AP to feed back the monitoring result;

and receiving a monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP based on the reply instruction.

In a fifth possible implementation manner provided by the first possible implementation manner, the collaborative monitoring instruction carries a preset second duration; receiving a monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP, including:

receiving a monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP due to overtime monitoring, wherein the overtime monitoring refers to: the monitoring duration of the candidate AP to the STA reaches the second duration.

In a sixth possible implementation manner provided by the first possible implementation manner, determining a roaming control decision for the STA based on the monitoring result includes:

Determining whether to trigger roaming to the STA based on the monitoring result, the link quality, the network performance of the current AP and the network performance of the candidate AP;

In the event that roaming to the STA is triggered, a roaming AP is determined among the candidate APs.

In a seventh possible embodiment provided on the basis of the above first possible embodiment, or the above second possible embodiment, or the above third possible embodiment, or the above fourth possible embodiment, or the above fifth possible embodiment, or the above sixth possible embodiment, the link quality includes: network rate, network packet loss rate and received signal strength indicator RSSI; the quality anomaly condition includes at least one of:

the network rate is smaller than a preset rate threshold;

the RSSI is less than a preset RSSI threshold.

It should be appreciated that in embodiments of the present application, the Processor 702 may be a central processing unit (Central Processing Unit, CPU), which may also be other general purpose processors, digital signal processors (DIGITAL SIGNAL processors, DSPs), application SPECIFIC INTEGRATED Circuits (ASICs), off-the-shelf Programmable gate arrays (Field-Programmable GATE ARRAY, FPGA) or other Programmable logic devices, discrete gate or transistor logic devices, discrete hardware components, or the like. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like.

Memory 701 may include read only memory and random access memory, and provides instructions and data to processor 702. Some or all of memory 701 may also include non-volatile random access memory. For example, the memory 701 may also store information of a device class.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that, for convenience and brevity of description, only the above-described division of the functional units and modules is illustrated, and in practical application, the above-described functional distribution may be performed by different functional units and modules according to needs, i.e. the internal structure of the apparatus is divided into different functional units or modules to perform all or part of the above-described functions. The functional units and modules in the embodiment may be integrated in one processing unit, or each unit may exist alone physically, or two or more units may be integrated in one unit, where the integrated units may be implemented in a form of hardware or a form of a software functional unit. In addition, the specific names of the functional units and modules are only for distinguishing from each other, and are not used for limiting the protection scope of the present application. The specific working process of the units and modules in the above system may refer to the corresponding process in the foregoing method embodiment, which is not described herein again.

In the foregoing embodiments, the descriptions of the embodiments are emphasized, and in part, not described or illustrated in any particular embodiment, reference is made to the related descriptions of other embodiments.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the various illustrative elements and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware, or combinations of external device software and electronic hardware. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the solution. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present application.

In the embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed apparatus and method may be implemented in other manners. For example, the system embodiments described above are merely illustrative, e.g., the division of modules or units described above is merely a logical functional division, and there may be additional divisions when actually implemented, e.g., multiple units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted, or not performed. Alternatively, the coupling or direct coupling or communication connection shown or discussed may be an indirect coupling or communication connection via interfaces, devices or units, which may be in electrical, mechanical or other forms.

The units described above as separate components may or may not be physically separate, and components shown as units may or may not be physical units, may be located in one place, or may be distributed over a plurality of network units. Some or all of the units may be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of this embodiment.

The integrated units described above, if implemented in the form of software functional units and sold or used as stand-alone products, may be stored in a computer readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the present application may also be implemented by implementing all or part of the flow of the method of the above embodiment, or by instructing the associated hardware by a computer program, where the computer program may be stored on a computer readable storage medium, and where the computer program, when executed by a processor, may implement the steps of each of the method embodiments described above. The computer program comprises computer program code, and the computer program code can be in a source code form, an object code form, an executable file or some intermediate form and the like. The above computer readable storage medium may include: any entity or device capable of carrying the computer program code described above, a recording medium, a U disk, a removable hard disk, a magnetic disk, an optical disk, a computer readable Memory, a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a random access Memory (RAM, random Access Memory), an electrical carrier signal, a telecommunications signal, a software distribution medium, and so forth. It should be noted that the content of the computer readable storage medium described above may be appropriately increased or decreased according to the requirements of the jurisdiction's legislation and the patent practice, for example, in some jurisdictions, the computer readable storage medium does not include electrical carrier signals and telecommunication signals according to the legislation and the patent practice.

The above embodiments are only for illustrating the technical solution of the present application, and are not limiting; although the application has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that: the technical scheme described in the foregoing embodiments can be modified or some technical features thereof can be replaced by equivalents; such modifications and substitutions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, and are intended to be included in the scope of the present application.

Claims

1. The roaming control method is characterized in that the roaming control method is applied to a current AP, wherein the current AP is an AP of a current associated STA, and the roaming control method comprises the following steps:

under the condition that the link quality between the STA and the current AP meets a preset quality abnormal condition, sending a collaborative monitoring instruction to other APs in a network where the current AP is located, wherein the collaborative monitoring instruction is used for requesting the other APs to start monitoring the STA;

receiving a monitoring result fed back by a candidate AP, wherein the monitoring result is used for describing the signal quality between the STA and the candidate AP, and the candidate AP is the other AP agreeing to cooperative monitoring;

And determining roaming control decision of the STA based on the monitoring result.

2. The roaming control method of claim 1, wherein after the sending of the cooperative monitoring instruction to the other APs in the network where the current AP is located, the roaming control method further comprises:

And sending a message to the STA, wherein the message is used for triggering the STA to send an uplink message.

3. The roaming control method of claim 2, wherein the sending a message to the STA comprises:

And sending a message to the STA under the condition that the monitoring results in the preset first duration are all empty.

4. The roaming control method of claim 1, wherein the receiving the monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP includes:

sending a reply instruction to the candidate AP, wherein the reply instruction is used for indicating the candidate AP to feed back a monitoring result;

and receiving the monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP based on the reply instruction.

5. The roaming control method of claim 1, wherein the collaborative monitoring command carries a preset second duration; the receiving the monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP comprises the following steps:

Receiving the monitoring result fed back by the candidate AP due to timeout monitoring, wherein the timeout monitoring refers to: and the monitoring time of the candidate AP to the STA reaches the second time.

6. The roaming control method of claim 1, wherein the determining a roaming control decision for the STA based on the monitoring result comprises:

Determining whether to trigger roaming to the STA based on the monitoring result, the link quality, the network performance of the current AP, and the network performance of the candidate AP;

7. The roaming control method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the link quality includes: network rate, network packet loss rate and received signal strength indicator RSSI; the quality exception condition includes at least one of:

the network rate is smaller than a preset rate threshold;

The RSSI is smaller than a preset RSSI threshold.

8. A roaming control apparatus, wherein the roaming control apparatus is applied to a current AP, the current AP being an AP of a current association STA, the roaming control apparatus comprising:

The cooperative module is configured to send a cooperative monitoring instruction to other APs in a network where the current AP is located, where the link quality between the STA and the current AP meets a preset quality exception condition, where the cooperative monitoring instruction is used to request the other APs to start monitoring the STA;

The receiving module is used for receiving a monitoring result fed back by a candidate AP, wherein the monitoring result is used for describing the signal quality between the STA and the candidate AP, and the candidate AP is the other AP agreeing to cooperative monitoring;

And the control module is used for determining a roaming control decision for the STA based on the monitoring result.

9. A network device comprising a memory, a processor and a computer program stored in the memory and executable on the processor, wherein the processor implements the method of any one of claims 1 to 7 when executing the computer program.

10. A computer readable storage medium storing a computer program, characterized in that the computer program when executed by a processor implements the method according to any one of claims 1 to 7.