JP7791415B2 - Wireless communication system, wireless access point device, and program - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a wireless communication system, a wireless access point device, and a program.

In recent years, wireless LAN usage has become widespread, and access point devices are being installed and used in various locations.

In a situation like this where multiple access point devices are installed in various locations, when a client communicating with one access point device moves, the client's wireless LAN communication destination is switched to another access point device, a phenomenon known as roaming.

With conventional technology, when roaming occurs, the client disconnects from the access point device with which it is currently communicating (the roaming source) and then associates and authenticates with the new access point device that will be the roaming destination, resulting in at least a temporary disconnection of the wireless LAN connection and communication delays.

Toshi Fujinoki, "[Wireless Blog No. 9] Roaming," [online], November 21, 2019, [Retrieved November 16, 2021], Internet <URL:https://licensecounter.jp/engineer-voice/blog/articles/20191121__9.html>

As a result, standards such as IEEE802.11r have been established, as described in Non-Patent Document 1, and technologies for relatively high-speed roaming (high-speed roaming technologies) have been developed. However, in order to use this high-speed roaming technology, both the access point device and the client device must perform processing compatible with the same high-speed roaming technology standard. However, there have been cases where connection fails when high-speed roaming is enabled due to minor differences between the two standards.

Furthermore, with wireless LAN, once network settings for communication have been configured, the original network settings will continue to be used until the user explicitly switches network settings. If a connection fails with a certain network setting, subsequent connections will also be impossible, resulting in reduced network availability.

The present invention was made in consideration of the above-mentioned circumstances, and one of its objectives is to provide a wireless communication system, a wireless access point device, and a program that can improve network availability.

One aspect of the present invention that solves the problems of the above-mentioned conventional examples is a wireless communication system that includes a wireless LAN system including multiple access point devices and a terminal device, where each access point device in the wireless LAN system communicates with the terminal device via one of multiple interfaces, including a first interface that communicates in accordance with a predetermined high-speed roaming method and a second interface that communicates with the terminal device with the predetermined high-speed roaming method disabled, and the wireless LAN system has means for accepting a connection request from the terminal device, acquisition means for acquiring information that identifies the terminal device at the time of the connection request, and decision means for deciding which of the multiple interfaces, including the first interface and the second interface, to use for communication, and controls the system to initiate communication with the terminal device that made the connection request via the decided interface.

Another aspect of the present invention is an access point device comprising: communication means for communicating with a terminal device via one of a plurality of interfaces, including a first interface for communicating in accordance with a predetermined high-speed roaming method and a second interface for communicating with the predetermined high-speed roaming method disabled; means for accepting a connection request from the terminal device; acquisition means for acquiring information identifying the terminal device at the time of the connection request; determination means for determining, based on the information acquired by the acquisition means, which of a plurality of interfaces, including the first interface and the second interface, to communicate via; and means for providing information on the interface to connect to after configuration is complete, and controlling the initiation of communication with the terminal device that made the connection request via the determined interface.

According to these aspects of the present invention, terminal devices that are determined to be unable to connect to an interface that has high-speed roaming enabled can be assigned to communicate via the second interface, while terminal devices that support high-speed roaming can be assigned to communicate via the first interface. This maintains the availability of terminal devices that support high-speed roaming, while controlling terminal devices that are determined to be unable to connect to an interface that has high-speed roaming enabled not to perform high-speed roaming, thereby improving their availability.

Furthermore, the first interface and the second interface may be configured to use at least different frequency bands, and may be configured to use different SSIDs.

In this example, terminal devices that are determined to be unable to connect to the first SSID with high-speed roaming enabled will be assigned to communicate via the second SSID, while terminal devices that support high-speed roaming will be assigned to communicate via the first SSID, which is different from the second SSID.

The access point device may also be able to access a storage means that stores information identifying terminal devices that have previously failed to connect after connection setup, and the determination means may access the storage means to check whether the terminal device identified by the information acquired by the acquisition means is a terminal device that has previously failed to connect after the specified connection setup, and may determine which of a plurality of interfaces, including the first interface and the second interface, to use for communication.

In this example, terminal devices that have previously failed to connect after setting up a connection can communicate via the second interface based on information provided by the access point, and terminal devices that are determined to be unable to connect to an interface that enables high-speed roaming can be controlled, through relatively simple operations, to not connect to the first interface that enables high-speed roaming.

Furthermore, at this time, if the terminal device detects that the connection has failed after the specified connection settings have been made, it may access the storage means and store information identifying the terminal device that has failed to connect.

In this example, terminal devices that have previously failed to roam are recorded without any human intervention, so that terminal devices that are determined to be incompatible with high-speed roaming can be controlled, through relatively simple operations, to connect to a second interface, frequency band, or SSID that disables high-speed roaming.

Another aspect of the present invention is a program that causes an access point device having communication means for communicating with a terminal device via one of a plurality of interfaces, including a first interface for communicating in accordance with a predetermined high-speed roaming method and a second interface for communicating with the predetermined high-speed roaming method disabled, to function as means for accepting a connection request from the terminal device, acquisition means for acquiring information that identifies the terminal device at the time of the connection request, determination means for determining, based on the information acquired by the acquisition means, which of a plurality of interfaces, including the first interface or the second interface, to communicate via, and means for providing information on the interface to which the connection should be made after configuration is complete, and controls the access point device to initiate communication with the terminal device that made the connection request via the determined interface.

This invention improves network availability regardless of whether the terminal device can connect to an interface that supports high-speed roaming.

1 is a configuration block diagram of a wireless communication system according to an embodiment of the present invention; 3 is a functional block diagram illustrating an example of a control unit of the access point device according to the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an example of the operation of the access point device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. As shown in FIG. 1, a wireless communication system 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a wireless LAN system 100 and a terminal device 200 (client). The wireless LAN system 100 also includes a plurality of access point devices 10a, 10b, etc. (hereinafter, referred to as access point devices 10 when there is no need to distinguish between them) and a controller device 20.

The access point device 10 further comprises a control unit 11, a memory unit 12, and a communication unit 13. Here, the control unit 11 is a program-controlled device such as a CPU, and operates according to a program stored in the memory unit 12.

In this embodiment, the control unit 11 controls the communication unit 13 to communicate with the terminal device 200 via one of a plurality of interfaces, including a first interface for communication with a predetermined high-speed roaming method enabled and a second interface for communication with the predetermined high-speed roaming method disabled. Furthermore, upon accepting a connection request from the terminal device 200, the control unit 11 acquires information identifying the terminal device 200 and, based on the acquired information, determines which of a plurality of interfaces, including the first interface and the second interface, to use for communication. After completing the settings, the control unit 11 sends information about the determined interface to the terminal device 200 using a means for providing information about the interface to be connected, and begins communication with the terminal device 200 that made the connection request. The operation of the control unit 11 will be described in detail later.

The memory unit 12 includes a non-volatile memory device and stores programs executed by the control unit 11. The memory unit 12 also operates as a work memory for the control unit 11. The memory unit 12 may also include a volatile memory device.

The program stored in this storage unit 12 may be provided by being stored on a computer-readable, non-transitory recording medium, and may be copied to this storage unit 12, or may be received via a network, etc.

Under the control of the control unit 11, the communication unit 13 communicates with the terminal device 200 in accordance with the wireless LAN standard, and also communicates with the controller device 20 via wired or wireless connections. As already mentioned, in this embodiment, the communication unit 13 communicates via an interface selected and determined from multiple interfaces for each terminal device 200.

When performing high-speed roaming, the controller device 20 receives an authentication request from the roaming source access point device 10a and sends it to the roaming destination access point device 10b, and also receives a response from the roaming destination access point device 10b and sends it to the roaming source access point device 10a. This type of operation is widely known as the Over-the-DS roaming method, so further detailed explanation will be omitted.

The terminal device 200 may be any of a variety of electronic devices, such as a smartphone, a portable game console, or a home appliance. These terminal devices 200 may include devices that communicate using the same standard as the access point device 10 and support high-speed roaming, as well as devices that do not support high-speed roaming using the same standard as the access point device 10.

Next, an example of the operation of the control unit 11 of the access point device 10 of this embodiment will be described. As already mentioned, the access point device 10 of this embodiment is configured to communicate via one of multiple interfaces, including a first interface for communication with a predetermined high-speed roaming method enabled and a second interface for communication with the predetermined high-speed roaming method disabled. Here, the interface is identified by a frequency band, such as the 2.4 GHz band, 5 GHz band, or 6 GHz band, or an SSID (Service Set IDentifier). That is, as a specific example, the access point device 10 of this embodiment connects the terminal device 200 to either a network identified by a first SSID for communication with a predetermined high-speed roaming method enabled, or a network identified by a second SSID for communication with the above-mentioned predetermined high-speed roaming method disabled.

For terminal devices 200 connected to a network identified by a first SSID that performs communication with a predetermined high-speed roaming method enabled, the control unit 11 performs high-speed roaming using, for example, the IEEE 802.11r Over-the-DS roaming method. For example, the control unit 11 of the access point device 10 that is the roaming destination receives an authentication request (FT Request) via the controller device 200 and initiates high-speed roaming operation. This authentication request includes information that identifies the terminal device 200, such as the MAC (Media Access Control) address of the terminal device 200 that performs high-speed roaming.

Upon receiving this authentication request, the control unit 11 sends a predetermined response (FT Response) to the authentication request to the terminal device 200 via the controller device 20 and the roaming source access point device 10. The control unit 11 then accepts a reconnection request from the terminal device 200 via the communication unit 13, processes the reconnection, and sends a response.

After establishing a connection, if the control unit 11 receives an authentication request (Auth Request) but is unable to reconnect with the corresponding terminal device 200 within a predetermined time, it sends information identifying the terminal device 200 (e.g., a MAC address) to the controller device 20, and causes the controller device 20 to accumulate and store the information.

In this example, the controller device 20 operates as a storage means for storing information identifying terminal devices 200 that have previously failed to make a specified connection (hereinafter referred to as failure history information).

Furthermore, as illustrated in FIG. 2, the control unit 11 in this embodiment is configured to functionally include an acceptance unit 111 that accepts connection requests from the terminal device 200, an acquisition unit 112, a determination unit 113, and a connection unit 114.

The accepting unit 111 accepts a connection request from the terminal device 200 at a predetermined timing (for example, when an association request is made or when connection settings are made using WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) or the like). This connection request includes information such as a MAC address that identifies the terminal device 200. The acquiring unit 112 acquires the information that identifies the terminal device 200 that is included in the connection request accepted by the accepting unit 111.

Based on the information acquired by the acquisition unit 112, the determination unit 113 determines to which of the multiple interfaces, including the first interface and second interface, the terminal device 200 identified by the information should be connected to communicate.

As an example, the determination unit 113 accesses the controller device 20 and checks whether the information acquired by the acquisition unit 112 is included in the failure history information held by the controller device 20 that identifies terminal devices that have previously failed to connect after the above-mentioned specified connection settings.

In other words, this determination unit 113 checks whether the terminal device 200 that made the connection request has previously failed to connect after setting up a connection (whether it has previously failed to reconnect and whether the identification information for that failed attempt is stored in the failure history information).

If the failure history information does not include the information acquired by the acquisition unit 112, the decision unit 113 decides to connect the terminal device 200 that made the connection request to a network identified by a first SSID that performs communication with a predetermined high-speed roaming method enabled. Also, if the failure history information includes the information acquired by the acquisition unit 112, the decision unit 113 decides to connect the terminal device 200 that made the connection request to a network identified by a second SSID that performs communication with a predetermined high-speed roaming method disabled.

The connection unit 114 controls the terminal device 200 that has made the connection request to connect to the network with the SSID determined by the determination unit 113.

[Operation]
This embodiment has the configuration of the above example and operates as follows: In the following example, it is assumed that the failure history information held by the controller device 20 and identifying terminal devices that have failed to connect in the past after the above-mentioned predetermined connection setting is initially empty.

When the terminal device 200a makes a connection request (e.g., a WPS connection request) to one of the access point devices 10 in the wireless LAN system 100, the access point device 10 that receives the connection request initiates the process illustrated in Figure 3 and acquires information such as the MAC address that identifies the terminal device 200a that made the connection request (here, identification information "A") (S11).

Then, the access point device 10 accesses the controller device 20 and checks whether the acquired information "A" is included in the failure history information held by the controller device 20 (S12).

At this point, this terminal device 200a has never previously failed to connect after connection setup, and the failure history information held by the controller device 20 is empty (S12: No). Therefore, the access point device 10 controls the terminal device 200a, identified by this information "A," to connect to the network identified by the first SSID that communicates with a specified high-speed roaming method enabled (S13).

Thereafter, while connected to the network identified by the first SSID with access point device 10a included in wireless LAN system 100, if terminal device 200a moves and a state is reached in which communication with access point device 10b is more appropriate than communication with access point device 10a (for example, a state in which the strength of the signal transmitted and received between access point device 10b and terminal device 200a is determined to be stronger than the signal transmitted and received between access point device 10b and other access point devices 10), controller device 20 prompts terminal device 200a to roam to access point device 10b (S14: Start of high-speed roaming process).

If the terminal device 200a supports the high-speed roaming method, the terminal device 200a sends an authentication request (Auth Request) to the access point device 10b, which is the roaming destination, via the access point device 10a and the controller device 20.

The access point device 10b then responds to this authentication request by sending a predetermined response (Auth Response) to the terminal device 200a via the controller device 20 and the roaming source access point device 10a.

The terminal device 200a then requests re-association from the access point device 10b, and the access point device 10b responds with a re-association request, completing the roaming. This is an example of the original high-speed roaming method.

The access point device 10b then checks whether the connection after connection setup was successful (S15). If the terminal device 200a has reconnected to the access point device 10b and the connection after connection setup was successful (S15: Yes), the connection is considered to have been completed, the process ends, and communication continues.

On the other hand, if, for some reason, the terminal device 200a does not send an authentication request (Auth Request) during the connection process after connection setup in step S14, or does not request reconnection from the access point device 10b, or does not perform the correct process in response to the response, the process will not be completed within the specified time after the response to the authentication request (the connection process after connection setup has failed). Therefore, if the connection process after connection setup fails in this way, the access point device 10a or access point device 10b determines in step S15 that the connection process after connection setup has not been successful (S15: No).

Then, the access point device 10, which has determined that the terminal device 200a has failed the connection process after connection setup, sends information "A" identifying this terminal device 200a to the controller device 20, which then stores this information as failure history information (S16).

In this example, the terminal device 200a fails to establish a connection after connection setup, and loses its connection to the wireless LAN system 100.

The user then fails to connect after the connection setup and, upon receiving the connection loss, again makes a WPS connection request from terminal device 200a. The access point device 10, which receives this connection request, executes the process shown in FIG. 3, and in step S11 acquires information "A" that identifies terminal device 200a that made the connection request. It then accesses the controller device 20 and checks whether the acquired information "A" is included in the failure history information held by the controller device 20 (step S12).

In this case, since the controller device 20 has included the information "A" in the failure history information and stored it in the previous process (step S12: Yes), the access point device 10 controls the terminal device 200a identified by this information "A" to connect to the network identified by the second SSID that performs communication with the specified high-speed roaming method disabled (S17).

[Another example of a high-speed roaming method]
In the above description, an example of the high-speed roaming method has been described in which the wireless LAN system 100 performs roaming processing using the IEEE802.11r Over-the-DS roaming method, but the present embodiment is not limited to this example, and the wireless LAN system 100 may perform roaming processing using the IEEE802.11r Over-the-Air roaming method. Furthermore, a similar configuration can be adopted when performing roaming processing using a high-speed roaming method other than IEEE802.11r.

[Modification 1]
Furthermore, in the explanation up to this point, the access point device 10 and the controller device 20 have been described as separate entities, but the controller device 20 may also be configured integrally with any of the access point devices 10 included in the same wireless LAN system 100.

[Modification 2]
Furthermore, in the above embodiment, the access point device 10 determines the interface to connect the terminal device 200 to based on the failure history information, but instead, a configuration may be adopted in which a notification is sent at least once to the terminal device 200 whose identification information is recorded in the failure history information, that the failure history information has been recorded, and the user of the terminal device 200 receives the notification and changes the interface by operating the terminal device 200. Furthermore, if the failure history information is not stored, the user of the terminal device 200 may change the interface in response to a connection failure.

[Modification 3]
In addition, the interface of the access point device 10 may be an interface for configuring the access point device 10 (which may be accessible via a web server), allowing an administrator of the access point device 10 to select whether to enable or disable high-speed roaming for each interface (each SSID or each frequency band).

[Modification 4]
Furthermore, in the explanation up to this point, the access point device 10 has maintained the enable/disable information of the high-speed roaming method for each interface, but instead of maintaining the enable/disable information of the high-speed roaming method for each interface, if the terminal device 200 is connected to an interface for which the high-speed roaming method is enabled but the connection fails after connection setup, the access point device 10 may maintain a history of this fact and control the device to connect to an interface for which the high-speed roaming method is disabled based on the history.

[Modification 5]
Furthermore, some terminal devices 200 may use a technology that randomly changes information that identifies the terminal device 200. Therefore, the access point device 10 may detect a terminal device 200 that has failed to connect after connection setup, regardless of the recording of failure history information, record the identification information of the terminal device 200 in the failure history information, and then, when a connection setup is performed within a predetermined period thereafter (for example, the first connection setup thereafter, or within a predetermined period such as within 24 hours after recording), transmit information about a second interface that disables high-speed roaming to the terminal device 200 that performed the connection setup, and prompt the terminal device 200 to connect via the second interface.

REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 wireless communication system, 10 access point device, 11 control unit, 12 storage unit, 13 communication unit, 20 controller device, 100 wireless LAN system, 111 acceptance unit, 112 acquisition unit, 113 determination unit, 114 connection unit, 200 terminal device.

Claims (6)

A wireless LAN system including a plurality of access point devices and a terminal device,
each access point device of the wireless LAN system is an access point device that communicates with the terminal device via any one of a plurality of interfaces including a first interface that performs communication in accordance with a predetermined fast roaming method and a second interface that performs communication in which the predetermined fast roaming method is disabled;
The wireless LAN system
means for accepting a connection request from a terminal device;
an acquisition means for acquiring information for identifying the terminal device at the time of the connection request;
a determination means for determining which of a plurality of interfaces including the first interface and the second interface will be used for communication;
and
storing information identifying a terminal device that has previously failed to connect to the first interface corresponding to the predetermined fast roaming method;
the determining means accesses the stored information to check whether the terminal device identified by the information acquired by the acquiring means is a terminal device that has previously failed to connect to a first interface that supports the predetermined fast roaming method, and determines which interface of a plurality of interfaces including the first interface and the second interface to use for communication;
a wireless communication system that controls the start of communication with the terminal device that has made the connection request via the determined interface; a communication means for communicating with a terminal device via one of a plurality of interfaces including a first interface for performing communication in accordance with a predetermined fast roaming method and a second interface for performing communication in which the predetermined fast roaming method is disabled;
means for accepting a connection request from a terminal device;
an acquisition means for acquiring information for identifying the terminal device at the time of the connection request;
a determination means for determining which of a plurality of interfaces including the first interface and the second interface will be used for communication;
means for providing information on an interface to be connected based on the determination by said determining means ;
a storage means for storing information identifying a terminal device that has previously failed to connect to the first interface corresponding to the predetermined fast roaming method;
the determining means accesses the retaining means to check whether the terminal device identified by the information acquired by the acquiring means is a terminal device that has previously failed to connect to a first interface that supports the predetermined fast roaming method, and determines which interface of a plurality of interfaces including the first interface and the second interface to use for communication;
an access point device that performs control so as to start communication with the terminal device that has made the connection request via the determined interface; 3. The access point device according to claim 2,
The access point device, wherein at least the first interface and the second interface are set to different frequencies from each other. 3. The access point device according to claim 2,
The access point device has at least the first interface and the second interface set with different SSIDs. 5. The access point device according to claim 2, wherein :
When a terminal device detects that it has failed to connect to a first interface in which the specified high-speed roaming method is valid, the access point device accesses the storage means and stores information identifying the terminal device that has failed to connect to the first interface. an access point device having a communication means for communicating with a terminal device via any one of a plurality of interfaces including a first interface for performing communication in accordance with a predetermined fast roaming method and a second interface for performing communication in which the predetermined fast roaming method is disabled;
means for accepting a connection request from a terminal device;
an acquisition means for acquiring information for identifying the terminal device at the time of the connection request;
a determination means for determining which of a plurality of interfaces including the first interface and the second interface will be used for communication;
and providing information on an interface to be connected based on the determination by the determining means ;
the access point device is connected to a storage means for storing information identifying a terminal device that has previously failed to connect to the first interface corresponding to the predetermined fast roaming method, and
When functioning as the determination means, the storage means is accessed to check whether the terminal device identified by the information acquired by the acquisition means is a terminal device that has previously failed to connect to a first interface that supports the predetermined fast roaming method, and the determination means is made to determine which interface of a plurality of interfaces including the first interface and the second interface will be used for communication;
a program for controlling the start of communication with the terminal device that has made the connection request via the determined interface;