If you could have asked me back January what I thought the entire year 2020 would appear to be for High-Density Wi-Fi, I would’ve reeled off several main sporting events like the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and also big concerts, festivals and conferences that I planned on being truly a part of this season. I, alongside literally almost every other engineer centered on Wi-Fi was thrilled to observe how far Wi-Fi 6 would consider us with the process enhancements we’ve been waiting around years for. Fast forwards to nowadays, none of it…and After all NONE of it just happened because of COVID-19. While Personally i think the “pause” key has already been pressed on supplying Wi-Fi to the masses, what hasn’t stopped will be Cisco’s initiatives to keep to innovate in this area. What have we already been around? Keep reading….

But very first, some background

As I begun to think back on the background of our HD Wi-Fi journey since 2008, I rapidly realized that wasn’t a really blog, it was similar to a novel. I wound up tossing that concept and decided it’s easier to get to the idea of what we’re focusing on now considerably quicker! So rather than compose a novel on the annals I’ll keep it brief here so we are able to get to the idea of this blog.

Cisco entered the HD Wi-Fi market in 2008 and realized that Wi-Fi wasn’t made up of High Density at heart. Sure, there have been definitely stadiums ahead of that timeframe that got some degree of Wi-Fi access, however the first multi-billion-dollar hi-tech stadiums began showing up in 2009 2009. The first observations rapidly led us to target initially on the necessity to fight co-channel interference by producing smaller sized cells within large open public venues (LPV). This resulted in our initial LPV antenna. That antenna released our 1st purpose-built 30×30 diploma beamwidth and achieved the goal of generating smaller coverage tissue in the large open up areas that are standard of stadiums, convention facilities, and concert venues. As time passes we’ve added extra antennas to the circular out the portfolio, however the focus shifted even more towards software functions that enabled even more granular configuration and overall performance for the LPV room. Instead of walk through all the current functions and antennas available, it is possible to have a look at a recently available Cisco Live display from earlier this season in Barcelona. It addresses design considerations, antenna choices, features plus much more and will be accessed here:

https://www.ciscolive.com/c/dam/r/ciscolive/emea/docs/2020/pdf/BRKEWN-2013.pdf

What’s keeping us occupied in this pandemic?

We’ve come back to where it started. Recall we began our trip with a concentrate on antennas, after that we moved even more towards software features. Properly, we’re going for a fresh appearance at antenna enhancements specifically made for the LPV/Great Density environments.

Among the first queries that you may be asking is excatly why are we achieving this? With the enhancements that Wi-Fi 6 will be bringing with functions like OFDMA, perform we really need an improved antenna? We think the solution is yes. Searching historically at HD Wi-Fi in the last 12 years there’s been one constant – the info usage of client devices keeps growing exponentially season over year unfailingly. This is largely because of our app-centric approach to life these days along with overall enhancements of handsets and their efficiency capabilities. Therefore, while we concur that Wi-Fi 6 will be bringing essential enhancements at the process level, we also think that consumption will continue steadily to grow and any extra improvements that we could make on the AP or antenna entrance are worth your time and effort!

Design Requirements Stage

When we sat lower at the drawing panel late this past year, we discussed what we wished to achieve with a fresh antenna. That dialogue concluded with a summary of design requirements we’d attempt to achieve. While that was lengthy and exhaustive, this is a set of the major requirements:

1. The new antenna will need to have a tighter beamwidth with much better side lobe reduction. While our present antennas already execute a great job of the, our antenna design group felt there was a lot more room for enhancement of this type. This requirement was mainly driven by the theory that we also desire to have the ability to adequately service customers from additional distances and we experience one major part of accomplishing that is more reducing the inter-ap interference that’s commonplace in these conditions.
2. The new antenna must be software configurable. In the event that you go through the above requirement it could mean that we’d be developing an antenna which could only be used in specific scenarios with a restricted selection of distances. That didn’t seem sensible to the look team so our brand-new antenna could have a configurable beam width in addition to configurable beam steering features. This adds the flexibleness we desired and enables the antenna to end up being deployed in a number of environments.
3. The new antenna must be easier to install and also have fewer moving components. This is based on a need to enhance upon our present solution which includes an AP and optionally two exterior antennas. Additionally, in case you are deploying within an outdoor environment you should location the AP in NEMA enclosure. That’s too much to install! The brand new design carries a tri-radio style but will instead contain an AP and antenna mixed into a single device and will not need a NEMA enclosure.
4. What’s the 4^th necessity? It’s in fact a couple of cool new antenna functions however they are still a touch too early to speak about. We’ll publish an upgrade the moment we are able, however the general concept is that people are centered on keeping the set up, control and management basic and intuitive.

Prototype testing at Rock Lititz

Once the specifications were gathered, we moved right into a testing stage which involved creating hand-built prototypes to check specific antenna features and functionality we were seeking to attain. In January of the year, we could actually secure amount of time in the “studio” on the Rock Lititz campus in Lititz Pennsylvania ( www.rocklititz.com ). This service is typically utilized by touring musical musicians as a rehearsal service before moving out on visit. It mimics how big is a typical 20k chair arena and ended up being an ideal environment for testing various kinds of antenna features at numerous heights and angles. We caused the group at Rock Lititz (real rock stars incidentally) and could actually have got a 200ft truss hung from the overhead catwalk with electric motor mounts that permitted us to improve and lower our check equipment to any elevation we required at the push of a button!

This testing in Lititz laid the groundwork for exactly what will ultimately become our newest HD Wi-Fi antenna to be paired with the Catalyst 9130 access point. Below are a few even more pics of the tests from Lititz. Please note- that the access factors and antenna prototypes which are shown right here were only useful for validation and evidence points that people needed to opt to move forward and so are not an precise reflection of the form/size/measurements of what it’ll ultimately appear to be. For that, wait before end of the post!

Picture depicting hand-built prototypes mimicking beam steering capability

Drone shot from over the girder looking straight down towards test clients below

Time-lapse video displaying the team functioning through different throughput tests, co-channel tests, web site surveys, and AP/antenna adjustments we made once we experienced the test plan

Quick forward to these days

Because the hardware design is overall, the focus shifts towards software and focusing on an individual interface. The team can be hanging out developing some optional components targeted at making things simpler to deploy. We’re looking towards the release next calendar year, nevertheless we admit that COVID provides (and may still) add delays. For the time being, right here are a couple images of a prototype of what the AP/Antenna combo might appear to be:

Current prototype picture from leading (note- this is simply not your final product photo) Dimensions = 24″ x 18”

Latest prototype picture from the trunk (note- this is simply not your final product photo)

We’re excited to state the least and can update more once we get nearer to the launch date!

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