Smart Rf - Motorola RFS Series System Reference Manual

% Non-UNI
Retries

4.7.9 Smart RF

When invoked by an administrator, Smart RF (or self-monitoring at run time) instructs radios to change to a
specific channel and begin beaconing using their maximum available transmit power. Within a well planned
deployment, any associated radio should be reachable by at least one other radio. The Smart RF feature
records signals received from its neighbors as well as signals from external, un-managed radios. AP to AP
distance is recorded in terms of signal attenuation. The information from external radios is used during
channel assignment to minimize interference.
Smart RF management is comprised of the following two phases:
• Smart RF Calibration Phase
• Smart RF Monitoring Phase
Smart RF is well suited for clustered environments. Smart RF interacts with a number of existing features,
(such as radio detection, MU load balancing, and self-healing).
CAUTION: SmartRF should only be enabled on AP300 & AP-5131 when using antennas
with gains of 7dBi or less. For AP-7131 it should only be used with the façade antenna,
and for AP650 it should only be used with internal antenna models.
4.7.9.1 Smart RF Calibration Phase
Smart RF calibration is initiated by an administrator during initial deployment or can be scheduled at a
specified frequency or time of the day. Smart RF instructs adopted radios to scan legal channels and measure
signal strength from associated radio and other device signals detected within the environment.
Smart RF conducts the following network management activities:
• Automatically calibrates associated radio's maximum power capability
• Automatically assigns certain radios to be detectors
• Automatically assign channels to radios to avoid channel overlap and interference from external RF
sources
• Automatically calculates the transmit power of working radios
• Automatically configures self-healing parameters. Radio assume the roles of caretaker and caregiver.
When a radio is down, it is referred to as the caretaker. Neighbor radios raising their transmit power to
cover for the failed radio are referred to as caregivers. Smart RF calibration automatically chooses
caregiver radios along with the power needed to cover.
4.7.9.2 Smart RF Monitoring Phase
Smart RF monitoring occurs continuously. It includes the following monitoring activities:
• Self-healing to monitor whether a radio is down
• Interference monitoring using retry stats
• Defines coverage holes and discerns transmit rates and MU signal strength. When necessary, Smart RF
increases MU power to maintain coverage
% Non-Uni is the percentage of the total packets for the selected radio that are
non-unicast packets. Non-unicast packets include broadcast and multicast
packets.
Displays the total number of retries for each Access Port.
4-119
Network Setup