Cisco Hyperlocation

Cisco Hyperlocation

A hyperlocation solution is a wireless location technology that

  • uses specialized radio modules and algorithms to pinpoint the real-time position of Wi-Fi and BLE devices

  • enables advanced asset tracking and targeted content delivery by achieving sub-meter location accuracy, and

  • integrates with wireless network infrastructure and management platforms (such as controller and CMX)

You can use the Cisco Hyperlocation radio module in Cisco Aironet 3600, 3700, and 4800 Series APs to enable hyperlocation.

Hyperlocation is also supported in Fabric mode. In particular, when the wireless controller runs on the switch, the controller provisions the APs. The APs generate Hyperlocation VxLAN packets that can travel across the fabric network. The network infrastructure delivers these packets to the CMX destination.

The Hyperlocation VxLAN packets are special packets marked with SGT 0 and use the L3VNID of the APs. For more information, refer to the SDA documentation.

The Cisco Hyperlocation radio module provides these functions:

  • WSM or WSM2 radio module functions extended to support:

    • 802.11ac

    • Wi-Fi Transmit

    • 20-MHz, 40-MHz, and 80-MHz channel bandwidth.

  • Expanded location functionality:

    • Low-latency location optimized channel scanning

    • 32-antenna angle of arrival (AoA); available only with the WSM2 module.

Using the controller, you can configure Cisco Hyperlocation for APs based on their profile.


Note

When you use the WSM2 module (which includes the WSM module and the antenna add-on), the accuracy of tracking the location of wireless clients can be as close as one meter.

Cisco Hyperlocation works with Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX). When you combine the Cisco Hyperlocation feature on a Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controller with a CMX device, you can achieve better location accuracy, enabling more targeted content delivery to users. With CMX and Cisco CleanAir frequency scanning, it is easy to locate failed, lost, and rogue beacons.

The Cisco Hyperlocation radio module with an integrated BLE radio allows transmission of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) broadcast messages by using up to five BLE transmitters. The Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controller configures transmission parameters, such as the beacon interval, universally unique identifier (UUID), and transmission power for each beacon, globally for all APs. You must enable the Cisco Hyperlocation feature on the controller. The controller configures the major, minor, and transmission power values for each AP to provide more beacon granularity.


Note
The Cisco Hyperlocation feature must be enabled on the controller. In addition, CMX must be connected for BLE to work.

If a Cisco Hyperlocation radio module is not present, you can use Hyperlocation Local Mode. This option provides location accuracy between five and seven meters by using CPU cycle stealing.

Restrictions on Cisco Hyperlocation

  • You cannot modify detection, trigger, or reset thresholds while Hyperlocation is enabled.

  • You can set the reset threshold to any value from zero up to one less than the current threshold. For example, if the reset threshold is 10, set it to any value from 0 to 9.

  • Ensure that CMX is reachable through an SVI interface (VLAN) when you run Cisco Hyperlocation on the Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controller in a non-Fabric deployment. If CMX is reachable only through an L3 port, an error occurs.

  • In Fabric deployments, do not place the wireless management interface (typically a loopback interface) in Fabric.

  • You cannot assign the wireless management interface to a loopback interface in non-Fabric deployments.

NTPS and BLE configuration

A network time protocol server is a network device that

  • provides authoritative time information to other devices on the network, and

  • enables accurate time synchronization across distributed systems and applications.

For Cisco Hyperlocation to work, synchronize the AP with accurate time. The controller sends NTP information to the AP to achieve this synchronization. The AP then uses the NTP server to synchronize its clock. Therefore, the AP needs connectivity to the NTP server.

APs can be geographically dispersed. Therefore, it is necessary to provide different NTP servers to different APs. Configure NTP server information for each AP profile. If you do not configure NTP information on the AP profile, the controller uses one of the global NTP peers in its configuration. If the controller acts as an NTP server, it uses its management IP address for synchronization. If the NTP server is unavailable, Cisco Hyperlocation is disabled.


Note

In scale setup, the NTP server should be configured on the respective AP profiles, so that the APs and CA servers used for LSC provisioning are time synchronized. If the NTP server is not configured, a few APs would fail in LSC provisioning.

Bluetooth Low Energy Configuration

The BLE configuration is split into two parts: per-AP profile and per AP. You can configure the BLE feature partially from the AP profile (by default, the AP profile BLE configuration is applied) and partially per AP (some or all the attributes are applied).

Table 1. BLE Configuration Details

Attribute

BLE Configuration Per AP Profile

BLE Configuration Per AP

Attributes with per-AP granularity (global for all the beacons)

  • Interval

  • Advertised transmission power

  • Interval

  • Advertised transmission power

Attributes with per-AP per0-beacon granularity

  • Transmission power

  • UUID

  • Status

  • Transmission power

  • UUID

  • Status

  • Major

  • Minor

Note

The default-ap-profile BLE configuration serves as the default BLE configuration because all APs join the default-ap-profile AP profile if the other profiles are removed.

For more information about Cisco Hyperlocation, see the following documents:

Configure Cisco Hyperlocation (GUI)

Enable and configure Cisco Hyperlocation to achieve high-accuracy wireless client location tracking.

Cisco Hyperlocation is a location solution that allows you to track the location of wireless clients with an accuracy of one meter. When you select this option, all other fields on the screen are disabled except for NTP Server.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Configuration > Tags & Profiles > AP Join. Click Add.

The Add AP Join Profile dialog box appears.

Step 2

Under the AP > Hyperlocation tab, check the Enable Hyperlocation check box.

Step 3

In the Detection Threshold (dBm) field, enter a value to filter out packets with low RSSI. The valid value range is between –100 dBm and –50 dBm.

Step 4

In the Trigger Threshold (cycles) field, enter a value to set the number of scan cycles before sending a BAR to clients. The valid value range is between 0 and 99.

Step 5

In the Reset Threshold is required field, enter a value to reset value in scan cycles after trigger. The valid value range is between 0 and 99.

Step 6

Click Save & Apply to Device.

Configure Cisco Hyperlocation (CLI)

Enable and customize Cisco Hyperlocation features on supported APs using commands.

Procedure

Step 1

Enter the global configuration mode.

Example:

Device# configure terminal

Step 2

Configure an AP profile and enter the AP profile configuration mode.

Example:

Device(config)# ap profile profile-name

Step 3

Enable Cisco Hyperlocation feature on all the supported APs that are associated with this AP profile.

Example:

Device(config-ap-profile)# hyperlocation

Use the no form of the command to disable the Cisco Hyperlocation feature.

Step 4

Set threshold to filter out packets with low RSSI.

Example:

Device(config-ap-profile)# hyperlocation threshold detection -100

The no form of this command resets the threshold to its default value. The valid value range is between –100 and –50.

Step 5

Reset the value of scan cycles after a trigger.

Example:

Device(config-ap-profile)# hyperlocation threshold reset 8

The no form of this command resets the threshold to its default value.

Step 6

Set the number of scan cycles before sending a block acknowledgment request (BAR) to clients.

Example:

Device(config-ap-profile)# hyperlocation threshold trigger 10

The no form of this command resets the threshold to its default value.

Step 7

Set the IP address of the NTP server.

Example:

Device(config-ap-profile)# ntp ip 9.0.0.4

The no form of this command removes the NTP server.

Verify Cisco Hyperlocation

To display the hyperlocation status values and parameters for all the AP profiles, use this command:

Device# show ap hyperlocation summary
                
Profile Name: custom-profile
Hyperlocation operational status: Down
Reason: Hyperlocation is administratively disabled
Hyperlocation NTP server: 209.165.200.224
Hyperlocation admin status: Disabled
Hyperlocation detection threshold (dBm): -100
Hyperlocation trigger threshold: 10
Hyperlocation reset threshold: 8
Profile Name: default-ap-profile
Hyperlocation operational status: Up
Reason: N/A
Hyperlocation NTP server: 209.165.200.224
Hyperlocation admin status: Enabled
Hyperlocation detection threshold (dBm): -90
Hyperlocation trigger threshold: 22
Hyperlocation reset threshold: 8

To display both the overall and the per-AP configuration values and operational status, use this command:

Device# show ap hyperlocation detail
                
Profile Name: house24
Hyperlocation operational status: Up
 Reason: NTP server is not properly configured
Hyperlocation NTP server: 198.51.100.1
Hyperlocation admin status: Enabled
Hyperlocation detection threshold (dBm): -90
Hyperlocation trigger threshold: 8
Hyperlocation reset threshold: 7
AP Name                 Radio MAC         Method      CMX IP            AP Profile
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APe865.49d9.bfe0        e865.49ea.a4b0    WSM2+Ant    198.51.100.2        house24              
APa89d.21b9.69d0        a89d.21b9.69d0    Local       198.51.100.3        house24              
APe4aa.5d3f.d750        e4aa.5d5f.3630    WSM         198.51.100.4        house24

To display the overall (profile specific) configuration values and operational status for a given profile, use this command:

Device# show ap profile profile-name hyperlocation summary
                
Profile Name: 
                profile-name
Hyperlocation operational status: Up
   Reason: N/A
Hyperlocation NTP server: 209.165.200.224
Hyperlocation admin status: Enabled
Hyperlocation detection threshold (dBm): -100
Hyperlocation trigger threshold: 10
Hyperlocation reset threshold: 8

To display both the overall (profile specific) and per-AP configuration values and operational status for a given profile, use this command. The APs listed are only those APs that belong to the specified join profile. 

Device# show ap profile profile-name hyperlocation detail
                
Profile Name: 
                profile-name
Hyperlocation operational status: Up
 Reason: N/A
Hyperlocation NTP server: 209.165.200.224
Hyperlocation admin status: Enabled
Hyperlocation detection threshold (dBm): -90
Hyperlocation trigger threshold: 8
Hyperlocation reset threshold: 7
AP Name                 Radio MAC         Method      CMX IP
----------------------------------------------------------------
APf07f.0635.2d40        f07f.0635.2d40    WSM2+Ant    198.51.100.2
APf07f.0635.2d41        f07f.0635.2d41    Local       198.51.100.3
APf07f.0635.2d42        f07f.0635.2d42    WSM         198.51.100.4

To display configuration values for an AP profile, use this command:

Device# show ap profile profile-name detailed
                
Hyperlocation :
  Admin State             : ENABLED
  PAK RSSI Threshold Detection: -100
  PAK RSSI Threshold Trigger  : 10
  PAK RSSI Threshold Reset    : 8
.
.
.

To display the Cisco CMXs that are correctly joined and used by hyperlocation, use this command:

Device# show ap hyperlocation cmx summary
                
Hyperlocation-enabled CMXs
IP            Port Dest MAC        Egress src MAC Egress VLAN Ingress src MAC Join time        
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
198.51.100.4  2003 aaaa.bbbb.cccc  aabb.ccdd.eeff 2           0000.0001.0001  12/14/18 09:27:14

To display the hyperlocation client statistics, use this command:

Device# show platform hardware chassis active qfp feature wireless wlclient cpp-client summary
                
Client Type Abbreviations:
  RG - REGULAR BL - BLE
  HL - HALO    LI - LWFL INT
Auth State Abbreviations:
  UK - UNKNOWN IP - LEARN IP IV - INVALID
  L3 - L3 AUTH RN - RUN
Mobility State Abbreviations:
  UK - UNKNOWN IN - INIT
  LC - LOCAL   AN - ANCHOR
  FR - FOREIGN MT - MTE
  IV - INVALID
EoGRE Abbreviations:
  N - NON EOGRE Y - EOGRE
 CPP IF_H     DPIDX      MAC Address    VLAN  CT  MCVL  AS  MS  E  WLAN POA 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   0X32     0XF0000001  0000.0001.0001   9    HL   0    RN  LC  N       NULL

To display the interface handle value statistics, use this command:

Device# show platform hardware chassis active qfp feature wireless wlclient datapath cpp-if-handle 0x32 statistics start

To display the recorded flow, use this command:

Device# show platform hardware chassis active qfp feature wireless wlclient datapath cpp-if-handle 0X32 statistics
                
                   Pkts                Bytes
Rx                  26                 3628

To stop statistics capture, use this command:

Device# show platform hardware chassis active qfp feature wireless wlclient datapath cpp-if-handle 0x32 statistics stop

To view the APs requested by Cisco CMX with AP groups' support, use this commands:

Device# show nmsp subscription group summary
                
CMX IP address: 198.51.100.4
  Groups subscribed by this CMX server:
  Group name: CMX_1198.51.100.4
Device# show nmsp subscription group detail ap-list CMX_198.51.100.1 198.51.100.1
                
CMX IP address: 198.51.100.1
CMX Group name: CMX_198.51.100.1
CMX Group AP MACs:
: aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:01 aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:02 aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:03 aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:03