MITIGATING INTERFERENCE IN WIRELESS SYSTEMS

• US 20140348004A1
• Filed: 01/24/2014
• Published: 11/27/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Aruba Networks Incorporated (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Inventors: Ponnuswamy, Subburajan
• Granted Patent: US 9,577,796 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/242
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/203 Details of error rate determination, e.g. BER, FER or WER

Abstract

According to one embodiment of the invention, a non-transitory computer readable medium for configuring a noise floor of a network device based on the detection of a non-Wi-Fi signal is described. One embodiment of the non-transitory computer readable medium comprises instructions that detect a non-Wi-Fi signal, determine a noise floor based on at least one attribute of the non-Wi-Fi signal and configure the noise floor of the network device such that the network device receives signals with a signal strength above the noise floor value.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed by at least one hardware processor, causes performance of operations comprising:

temporarily detecting a non-Wi-Fi signal on a radio frequency channel during a subset of a period of time during which non-Wi-Fi signals are being monitored;

determining a particular noise floor value based at least in part on a signal strength associated with the non-Wi-Fi signal that was detected during the subset of the period of time during which non-Wi-Fi signals were being monitored; and

configuring the particular noise floor for a device, the device being configured to receive signals with a signal strength above the particular noise floor value.

2. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the particular noise floor value is determined based on an amplitude of a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) corresponding to the non-Wi-Fi signal.

3. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the particular noise floor value is determined based on a center frequency of a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) corresponding to the non-Wi-Fi signal.

4. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the particular noise floor value is determined based on a duty cycle of a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) corresponding to the non-Wi-Fi signal.

5. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the particular noise floor value is different than a noise floor value measured by a radio of the device.

6. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the non-Wi-Fi signal is generated by a frequency hopper.

7. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the non-Wi-Fi signal is generated by an on/off source.

8. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the particular noise floor value is determined based further in part on an error rate associated with data received by the device.

9. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the particular noise floor value is determined based further in part on a signal strength at which a threshold level of physical (PHY) layer errors are reported.

10. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed by at least one hardware processor, causes performance of operations comprising:

configuring a first noise floor for a first device such that the first device decodes wireless signals with a signal strength above the first noise floor value;

determining that an error rate exceeds a threshold value, the error rate associated with data received by the first device configured with the first noise floor value; and

responsive to the error rate exceeding the threshold value;

selecting a second noise floor value, different than the first noise floor value, for reconfiguring the first device.

11. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 10 wherein selecting the second noise floor value comprises increasing the first noise floor value until the error rate associated with the data received by the first device does not exceed the threshold value.

12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 10 wherein the error rate is a packet error rate.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 10 wherein the error rate is a retry rate.

14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 10 wherein the error rate is a physical layer error rate.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 10 wherein a probability of interference is determined based on the occurrence or non-occurrence of at least one of (i) a difference between the measured SNR and the minimum SNR required to sustain the MCS of received frames is above a particular threshold, (ii) a difference between (1) a Frame Error Rate that should be sustained based on a SNR of received frames and (2) an actual Frame Error Rate that is greater than a particular threshold, or (iii) a difference between an actual noise floor and an expected noise floor is larger than a particular threshold.

16. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed by at least one hardware processor, causes performance of operations comprising:

configuring a first noise floor for a first device such that the first device decodes wireless signals with a signal strength above the first noise floor value;

determining that actual information received with a radio of the first device does not match expected information;

responsive to determining that the actual information does not match the expected information;

selecting a second noise floor value, different than the first noise floor value, for reconfiguring the first device.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16 wherein the actual information comprises an actual Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) for wireless signals detected by the radio of the first device and the expected information comprises an expected SNR for the wireless signals.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16 wherein the actual information comprises an actual signal strength for wireless signals detected by the radio of the first device and the expected information comprises an expected signal strength for the wireless signals.

19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16 wherein the actual information comprises an actual Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) for wireless signals detected by the radio of the first device and the expected information comprises an expected MCS for the wireless signals.