Mitigating interference in wireless systems

• US 9,577,796 B2
• Filed: 01/24/2014
• Issued: 02/21/2017
• 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
• Primary Examiner(s): Yao, Kwang B
• Assistant Examiner(s): Patel, Hardikkumar
• Application Number:
  US14/164,059
• Publication Number:
  US 20140348004A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,124 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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:

determining 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 determined during the subset of the period of time during which non-Wi-Fi signals were being monitored;

in response to a determination that interference impacts the signal strength, programming an artificially higher particular noise floor at a device;

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

testing, based on a packet retry rate, the configured higher particular noise floor for the device to determine a device performance level measurement; and

in response to the device performance level measurement below a particular threshold, incrementally increasing the higher particular noise floor until the particular threshold is met.

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.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein configuring the higher particular noise floor comprises incrementally increasing the higher particular noise floor until a desired performance by the device is obtained.

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;

in response to a determination that interference impacts the signal strength based on the error rate exceeding the threshold value, programming an artificially higher first noise floor value at a device;

testing the higher first noise floor value to determine a device performance level measurement; and

in response to the device performance level measurement below a particular threshold, incrementally increasing the higher first noise floor value until the particular threshold is met; and

in response to the incremental increase, selecting a second noise floor value based on the higher first 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 further comprises artificially programming the higher 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 an occurrence or non-occurrence of at least one of (i) a difference between a measured signal to noise ratio (SNR) and a minimum SNR required to sustain a Modulation and Coding Scheme (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;

in response to a determination that interference impacts the signal strength based on the determination that the actual information does not match the expected information, programming an artificially higher first noise floor value at a device;

testing the higher first noise floor value to determine a device performance level measurement; and

in response to the device performance level measurement below a particular threshold, incrementally increasing the higher first noise floor until the particular threshold is met; and

in response to the incremental increase, selecting a second noise floor value based on the higher first 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.