Information About Cisco Hyperlocation
Cisco Hyperlocation is an ultraprecise location solution that allows you to track the location of wireless clients. This is possible with the Cisco Hyperlocation radio module in the Cisco Aironet 3600, 3700, and 4800 Series Access Points. The Cisco Hyperlocation module combines Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technologies to allow beacons, inventory, and personal mobile devices to be pinpointed.
Hyperlocation is also supported in Fabric mode. In particular, when the wireless controller is running on the switch, the controller takes the necessary steps to provision the APs, so that they can generate Hyperlocation VxLAN packets that can traverse the fabric network taking advantage of the fabric infrastructure and be correctly delivered to the destination CMX.
The Hyperlocation VxLAN packets are special packets marked with SGT 0 and using the L3VNID of the APs. For more information, refer to the SDA documentation.
The Cisco Hyperlocation radio module provides the following:
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WSM or WSM2 radio module functions that are extended to:
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802.11ac
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Wi-Fi Transmit
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20-MHz, 40-MHz, and 80-MHz channel bandwidth.
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Expanded location functionality:
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Low-latency location optimized channel scanning
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32-antenna angle of arrival (AoA); available only with the WSM2 module.
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Note |
When using the WSM2 module (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 in conjunction with Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX). Combining the Cisco Hyperlocation feature on Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controller with a CMX device allows you to achieve better location accuracy, which can result in delivering more targeted content to users. When you use CMX with Cisco CleanAir frequency scanning, it is simple to locate failed, lost, and even 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 5 BLE transmitters. Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controller is used to configure transmission parameters such as interval for the beacons, universally unique identifier (UUID), and transmission power, per beacon globally for all the access points. Also, the controller can configure major, minor, and transmission power value of each AP to provide more beacon granularity.
Note |
The Cisco Hyperlocation feature must be enabled on the controller and CMX and CMX must be connected for BLE to work. |
In the absence of a Cisco Hyperlocation radio module, Hyperlocation will still work in a modality named Hyperlocation Local Mode, which guarantees a slightly lower location accuracy in the range between five meters and seven meters. This is accomplished through CPU cycle stealing.
Using the controller, you can configure Cisco Hyperlocation for APs based on their profile.
Network Time Protocol Server
Cisco Hyperlocation requires the AP to be synchronized with regard to time. To achieve this, the controller sends network time protocol (NTP) information to the AP. 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. This is achieved by allowing the configuration of NTP server information on a per AP profile basis. If NTP information is not configured on the AP profile, the controller uses one of the global NTP peers defined on its configuration or the management IP address is sent as the NTP server to be used if the controller is acting as an NTP server. If the NTP server is not available, Cisco Hyperlocation will be 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. The BLE feature can be configured 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).
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BLE Configuration Per AP Profile |
BLE Configuration Per AP |
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Attributes with per-AP granularity (global for all the beacons) |
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Attributes with per-AP per0-beacon granularity |
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Note |
The default-ap-profile BLE configuration can be considered the default BLE configuration because all the APs will join the default-ap-profile AP profile in case the other profiles are removed. For more information about Cisco Hyperlocation, see the following documents: |