Automatic Channel Selection
Contents
ACS
Automatic Channel Selection algorithms and implementations are used to enable interfaces to automatically figure out which channel configuration to use for initiating communication, for any mode of operation which initiates radiation (AP, Mesh, IBSS, P2P).
There are different algorithms that can be used to finding an ideal channel. We currently only have one, described below.
ACS code
All algorithms can be dumped into a generic permissively licensed userspace application which can then be used for integration into differente projects. The code is hosted at:
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mcgrof/acs.git
You can send patches To: mcgrof@gmail.com and Cc: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org
Survey based algorithm
The survey based algorithm relies on the nl80211 survey API command to query the interface for channel active time, channel busy time, channel tx time and noise. The active time consists of the amount of time the radio has spent on the channel. The busy time consists of the amount of time the channel has spent on the channel but noticed the channel was busy and could not initiate communication if it wanted to. The tx time is the amount of time the channel has spent on the channel transmitting data. The survey algorithm relies on these values to build an interference factor to give a sense of how much interference was detected on the channel and then picks the channel with the lowest interference factor.
The interference factor is defined as the ratio of the observed busy time over the time we spent on the channel, this value is then amplified by the noise based on the lowest and highest observed noise value on the same frequency. This corresponds to:
(busy time - tx time) / (active time - tx time) * 2^(noise + min_noise)
The coefficient of of 2 reflects the way power in "far-field" radiation decreases as the square of distance from the antenna What this does is it decreases the observed busy time ratio if the noise observed was low but increases it if the noise was high, proportionally to the way "far field" radiation changes over distance. Since the values obtained here can vary from fractional to millions the sane thing to do here is to use log2() to reflect the observed interference factor. log2() values less than 0 then represent fractional results, while > 1 values non-fractional results. The computation of the interference factor then becomes:
log2( (busy time - tx time) / (active time - tx time) * 2^(noise + min_noise)) --- or due to logarithm identities --- log2(busy time - tx time) - log2(active time - tx time) + log2(2^(noise + min_noise))
This "interference factor" is purely subjective and ony time will tell how usable this is. By using the minimum noise floor we remove any possible issues due to card calibration. The computation of the interference factor then is dependent on what the card itself picks up as the minimum noise, not an actual real possible card noise value.
Example output:
2412 MHz: 7.429173 2417 MHz: 10.460830 2422 MHz: 12.671070 2427 MHz: 13.583892 2432 MHz: 13.405357 2442 MHz: 13.566887 2447 MHz: 15.630824 2452 MHz: 14.639748 2457 MHz: 14.139193 2467 MHz: 11.914643 2472 MHz: 16.996074 2484 MHz: 15.175455 5180 MHz: -0.218548 5200 MHz: -2.204059 5220 MHz: -1.762898 5240 MHz: -1.314665 5260 MHz: -3.100989 5280 MHz: -2.157037 5300 MHz: -1.842629 5320 MHz: -1.498928 5500 MHz: 3.304770 5520 MHz: 2.345992 5540 MHz: 2.749775 5560 MHz: 2.390887 5580 MHz: 2.592958 5600 MHz: 2.420149 5620 MHz: 2.650282 5640 MHz: 2.954027 5660 MHz: 2.991007 5680 MHz: 2.955472 5700 MHz: 2.280499 5745 MHz: 2.388630 5765 MHz: 2.332542 5785 MHz: 0.955708 5805 MHz: 1.025377 5825 MHz: 0.843392 Ideal freq: 5260 MHz
Status
Initial implementation is now complete, ACS hostapd RFC patches have been posted.