A virtual sta-based wifi multi-band intelligent scanning method and system

Abstract

The application discloses a kind of based on virtual STA's WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method and system, belong to wireless communication technical field.The application obtains the physical link quantity and multi-link transceiver capability of radio frequency chip by driving interface, intelligently determines three scanning modes of full parallel, mixed or intelligent time division, makes scanning strategy and hardware capability accurate match, realizes resource utilization maximization;Create independent virtual STA instance for each to-be-scanned frequency band, once certain instance completes scanning, immediately release the physical radio frequency link occupied by it, and according to the number of remaining channels, preferentially dynamically allocate to the unfinished instance, realize the directional tilt of radio frequency resource to bottleneck frequency band, significantly compress the total time length of multi-band scanning;Combine historical connection data to extract target frequency band and historical effective channel, narrow scanning range, simultaneously to AP original data carry out deduplication and association integration, generate unified AP list, effectively reduce roaming switching delay and power consumption overhead.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to the field of wireless communication technology, and in particular to a WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method and system based on virtual STA. Background Technology

[0002] With the continuous evolution of WiFi technology, WiFi 6E introduced the 6GHz band, and WiFi 7 further enhanced the collaborative working capability of the 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz bands. Before connecting to a network or making roaming decisions, devices need to perform a full channel scan of all supported frequency bands to discover available access points.

[0003] However, the total number of channels across the three frequency bands is quite large. The traditional sequential scanning mechanism scans all channels in each frequency band one by one, resulting in a complete scan taking several seconds or even longer. During this time, normal data communication of the device is forced to be interrupted, causing serious problems that affect the user experience, such as game frame drops, video stuttering, and voice call interruptions. Moreover, the hardware configurations of WiFi chips on the market vary greatly. High-end WiFi 7 chips may be equipped with 3 independent radio frequency links, mid-range chips only have 2, while a large number of existing WiFi 5 / 6 and low-power IoT chips only have 1 radio frequency link.

[0004] Existing scanning solutions are mostly designed with fixed strategies for specific hardware and cannot be automatically optimized for different devices. Although the multi-link operation in the WiFi 7 standard defines a multi-link architecture, it mainly solves the aggregation problem in the data transmission stage. AffiliatedSTA is statically determined in the protocol negotiation stage and is not designed for scanning optimization. In addition, it requires both the AP and the device to support WiFi 7, which cannot cover existing devices. Summary of the Invention

[0005] The purpose of this invention is to provide a WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method and system based on virtual STA to solve the problems mentioned in the background art.

[0006] To achieve the above objectives, the present invention provides the following technical solution: A WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method based on virtual STA includes the following steps: Based on the WiFi scanning trigger request, the hardware parameters of the current RF chip are obtained through the driver interface, and a standardized hardware capability descriptor is generated, including the list of frequency bands to be scanned, the number of physical RF links, and the multi-link transceiver capability identifier. The current scanning operation mode is determined based on the standardized hardware capability descriptor, and virtual STA instances corresponding to each frequency band to be scanned are dynamically created according to the current scanning operation mode and the number of frequency bands to be scanned. Based on the current scanning operation mode, perform initial physical radio frequency link allocation for each virtual STA instance, and perform channel scanning operation for each frequency band according to the allocation results; During the scanning process, the scanning progress status data of each virtual STA instance is monitored in real time to determine whether there are any virtual STA instances that have completed the scanning of each frequency band channel; When it is detected that any virtual STA instance has completed the full channel scan of the corresponding frequency band, the physical radio frequency link occupied by the virtual STA instance is immediately released and a release completion signal is generated. Simultaneously, based on the release completion signal, the remaining uncompleted channel scan target virtual STA instances are traversed, and the released physical radio frequency links are dynamically allocated to the target virtual STA instances until all virtual STA instances have completed channel scans; Once all virtual STA instances have completed channel scanning, the raw scan data of single-band APs output by all virtual STA instances is obtained, and the raw scan data of APs is deduplicated and integrated to generate an AP list.

[0007] Furthermore, the specific process for determining the current scanning operation mode includes: Compare the number of physical RF links in the standardized hardware capability descriptor with the number of each frequency band to be scanned in the list of frequency bands to be scanned. When the number of physical RF links is greater than or equal to the number of frequency bands to be scanned, the current scanning operation mode is determined to be the fully parallel mode. When the number of physical RF links is less than the number of frequency bands to be scanned but greater than 1, the current scanning operation mode is determined to be hybrid mode; When the number of physical RF links is equal to 1, the current scanning operation mode is determined to be intelligent time-division mode; Simultaneously, a mode decision identifier is generated based on the determined current scanning operation mode, and a virtual STA instance is created and an initial physical radio frequency link is allocated based on the mode decision identifier.

[0008] Furthermore, the dynamic creation of virtual STA instances corresponding one-to-one with each frequency band to be scanned specifically includes: Iterate through the list of frequency bands to be scanned in the standardized hardware capability descriptor and obtain each frequency band to be scanned in the list of frequency bands to be scanned. Based on the virtual STA manager, a virtual STA instance corresponding to each frequency band to be scanned is generated, and a unique identifier and scan task buffer are assigned to each virtual STA instance; Each virtual STA instance pre-stores the channel scan sequence, scan state machine, and interactive command queue for the corresponding frequency band.

[0009] Furthermore, the initial physical radio frequency link allocation for each virtual STA instance based on the current scanning operation mode specifically includes: When the current scanning operation mode is fully parallel mode, a corresponding physical radio frequency link is allocated to each virtual STA instance, and each virtual STA instance synchronously performs channel scanning operation of the corresponding frequency band based on the allocation result; When the current scanning operation mode is mixed mode, the total number of channels in each frequency band to be scanned is obtained, and each virtual STA instance is prioritized based on the total number of channels in each frequency band. The corresponding physical radio frequency link is allocated first based on the ranking result, and the remaining virtual STA instances share the unallocated physical radio frequency link. They take turns to perform scanning according to priority order, and the time slice length is allocated proportionally according to the number of remaining channels in each frequency band. When any virtual STA instance completes scanning all remaining channels in its corresponding time slice, its unused time slice is automatically given to the next virtual STA instance in priority order. When the current scanning operation mode is intelligent time-division mode, each virtual STA instance shares a unique physical radio frequency link and generates a frequency band switching sequence. Each virtual STA instance takes turns binding to the physical radio frequency link based on the generated frequency band switching sequence and performs channel scanning of the corresponding frequency band in sequence.

[0010] Furthermore, the generation of the frequency band switching sequence specifically includes: Acquire historical connection data of the device, filter valid WiFi communication link data from the historical connection data, and extract the target operating frequency band from the valid WiFi communication link data; Obtain the number of non-target frequency band channels in each frequency band to be scanned, excluding the target working frequency band, and sort the non-target frequency bands according to the sorting rule of the number of non-target frequency band channels from smallest to largest to generate an initial frequency band sequence; Obtain the target SSID carried in the WiFi scan trigger request, retrieve all historical connection records that match the target SSID from the historical connection data, and extract the historical camping frequency bands from all historical connection records; The historically residing frequency bands in the initial frequency band sequence are moved forward to the front of the non-historically residing frequency bands to generate a frequency band switching sequence.

[0011] Furthermore, the generation of the frequency band switching sequence also includes: After scanning all channels of the current frequency band based on the frequency band switching sequence, the scanning completion timestamp of the current frequency band is collected, and the real-time working status parameters of the physical radio frequency link at the current moment are recorded. Based on the frequency band switching type between the current frequency band and the next frequency band to be scanned, obtain the corresponding link switching delay value from the preset delay configuration table; The calibration scan start time for the physical RF link to switch from the current working state to the target working state is calculated based on the scan completion timestamp and the link switching delay value. Based on the calibration scan start time, scan timing adjustment parameters are generated, calibration is performed based on the scan timing adjustment parameters, and the scan of the first channel of the next scanned frequency band is started when the planned scan start time arrives; After completing the current sub-band switching and the first channel scan, the actual deviation between the actual scan start time and the planned scan start time is calculated. The actual deviation is used as a feedback compensation factor for calculating the scan start time of the first channel of the next scanned frequency band in subsequent frequency band switching.

[0012] Furthermore, the immediate release of the physical radio frequency link occupied by the virtual STA instance and the generation of a release completion signal specifically includes: When the current status flag of any virtual STA instance is updated to the scan completed status, the link reclamation scheduling mechanism is triggered. Based on the link recycling scheduling mechanism, the status of the released physical radio frequency link is determined to be idle and schedulable. The idle status identifier and release timestamp of the physical radio frequency link are integrated to generate a release completion signal, which is then pushed to the resource scheduling queue. Traverse the resource scheduling queue, filter candidate virtual STA instances whose current status flag is "scanning" and whose unscanned channel list is not empty, and construct a candidate link scheduling instance set; Based on the number of channels in the unscanned channel list corresponding to each candidate virtual STA instance, the candidate virtual STA instances in the candidate link scheduling instance set are prioritized. Based on the ranking results, the candidate virtual STA instance with the highest priority is extracted as the target virtual STA instance. Combined with the RF operating parameters of the target virtual STA instance corresponding to the operating frequency band, it is determined whether the released physical RF link meets the operating conditions of the operating frequency band. If satisfied, a temporary scheduling binding relationship is established with the target virtual STA instance based on the unique identifier of the released physical radio frequency link; After the temporary binding relationship is established, the remaining channels in the unscanned channel list of the target virtual STA instance are scanned in parallel based on the original physical radio frequency link of the target virtual STA instance and the temporarily scheduled binding physical radio frequency link.

[0013] Furthermore, after the parallel scan, the process also includes: During the parallel scanning process, the first scan result set and the second scan result set are obtained based on the original physical radio frequency link of the target virtual STA instance and the physical radio frequency link based on the temporary scheduling binding relationship, respectively. Based on the channel identifier, the first scan result set and the second scan result set are merged to generate the scan result merge set of the target virtual STA instance; When all channels in the unscanned channel list are covered by either the first scan result set or the second scan result set, the target virtual STA instance is determined to have completed the scan. Update the current status flag of the target virtual STA instance to scan complete, remove the temporary scheduling binding relationship, and reset the link status of the corresponding physical radio frequency link to idle and schedulable.

[0014] Furthermore, obtaining the hardware parameters of the current radio frequency chip also includes: Obtain the trigger type of this WiFi scan trigger request, match the trigger type with the preset scan strategy table, and determine the scan depth type for this scan; When the trigger type is user manual trigger or timed trigger, the scan depth type is determined to be full-band depth scan, the first scan depth identifier is generated, and the full list of frequency bands to be scanned is used as the scan range. When the trigger type is roaming event trigger, the scan depth type is determined to be partial frequency band fast scan, and a second scan depth identifier is generated; Based on the second scan depth identifier, the target working frequency band is extracted from the historical connection data of the device as the main scan frequency band, and the original scan data of historical APs in the main scan frequency band is obtained, and the channel records are extracted as a subset of channels to be scanned. The main scanning frequency band and the subset of channels to be scanned are associated and integrated to generate a scanning constraint descriptor, and the scanning constraint descriptor is encapsulated with a standardized hardware capability descriptor. Based on the WiFi scan trigger request carrying the scan restriction descriptor, a virtual STA instance corresponding to the main scan frequency band is created.

[0015] This invention provides another technical solution: a WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning system based on virtual STA, comprising: The application layer includes a roaming decision module and a scan result aggregation module. The roaming decision module initiates a WiFi scan trigger request through the scan trigger entry, and the scan result aggregation module receives and returns the AP list through the scan result return exit. The virtual STA management layer includes: The hardware detection unit is used to obtain the RF chip hardware parameters of the physical hardware layer through the driver interface and generate a hardware capability descriptor. The instance management unit is used to create a corresponding virtual STA instance for each frequency band based on the list of frequency bands to be scanned in the hardware capability descriptor. The mode selection unit is used to compare the number of physical RF links in the hardware capability descriptor with the number of frequency bands to be scanned, and select the full parallel mode, hybrid mode or intelligent time division mode according to the comparison result. The resource scheduling unit is used to allocate physical radio frequency links to each virtual STA instance according to the selected mode, monitor the scanning progress of each instance during the scanning process, release the physical radio frequency link it occupies after any instance completes the scan, and dynamically reallocate the released link to virtual STA instances that have not completed the scan to accelerate the scan. The scanning execution unit is used to drive each virtual STA instance to perform channel scanning operations for the corresponding frequency band according to the allocated physical link and the selected mode; The result aggregation unit is used to collect the raw scan data of single-band APs output by each instance after all virtual STA instances have completed scanning, deduplicatize and merge multi-band APs with the same source, generate a unified AP list, and return the AP list to the scan result aggregation module. The physical hardware layer includes the WiFi radio frequency chip and the corresponding multiple physical radio frequency links. The number of physical radio frequency links and the supported frequency band information are read by the hardware detection unit as inherent hardware parameters. The physical hardware layer is also used to respond to scan drive commands issued by the scan execution unit via the drive interface and to perform actual channel scanning operations on each physical RF link.

[0016] Compared with the prior art, the beneficial effects of the present invention are: 1. This invention significantly shortens the total scanning time of three frequency bands on multi-RF devices through multi-band parallel scanning and dynamic scheduling of RF resources, effectively reducing the interruption of data transmission caused by scanning and improving the real-time application experience of games, video calls and other applications.

[0017] 2. This invention has strong hardware adaptability, covering a wide range of devices from single-RF to multi-RF. It can automatically adapt to various chip platforms with 1, 2, 3 or more physical RF links, including low-power IoT single-RF chips to high-end WiFi 7 multi-RF chips. There is no need to develop separate scanning strategies for different hardware, which is fundamentally different from MLO technology which is only applicable to WiFi 7 multi-RF devices.

[0018] 3. This invention monitors the scanning progress of each virtual STA in real time. Instances that complete the scan first immediately release their physical RF links and dynamically allocate them to high-load frequency bands that have not yet been completed, thus avoiding idle RF links and maximizing the utilization of hardware resources. At the same time, this mechanism is implemented purely in software and can be deployed through firmware / driver updates, resulting in low cost and strong compatibility. Attached Figure Description

[0019] Figure 1This is a flowchart of the WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method based on virtual STA according to the present invention; Figure 2 This is a schematic diagram of the operation mode selection logic of the present invention; Figure 3 This is a timing diagram of the dynamic recovery of radio frequency resources according to the present invention; Figure 4 This is a diagram of the WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning system architecture based on virtual STA of the present invention. Detailed Implementation

[0020] The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. Obviously, the described embodiments are only some embodiments of the present invention, and not all embodiments. Based on the embodiments of the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art without creative effort are within the scope of protection of the present invention.

[0021] Please see Figures 1-3 The present invention provides the following technical solutions: A WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method based on virtual STA includes the following steps: Based on the WiFi scanning trigger request, the hardware parameters of the current RF chip are obtained through the driver interface, and a standardized hardware capability descriptor is generated, including the list of frequency bands to be scanned (e.g., only supporting 2.4GHz / 5GHz, or simultaneously supporting 2.4GHz / 5GHz / 6GHz), the number of physical RF links (1, 2, or 3 or more), and the multi-link transceiver capability identifier (whether it supports simultaneous transmission and reception of multiple links). Determine the current scan operation mode based on standardized hardware capability descriptors: Compare the number of physical RF links in the standardized hardware capability descriptor with the number of each frequency band to be scanned in the list of frequency bands to be scanned. When the number of physical RF links is greater than or equal to the number of frequency bands to be scanned, such as 3 RF links + 3 frequency bands, the current scanning operation mode is determined to be the fully parallel mode. When the number of physical RF links is less than the number of frequency bands to be scanned but greater than 1, such as 2 RF links + 3 frequency bands, the current scanning operation mode is determined to be a mixed mode. When the number of physical radio frequency links is equal to 1, such as a single-radio WiFi 6 chip or a low-power IoT chip, the current scanning operation mode is determined to be intelligent time-division mode. Simultaneously, a mode decision identifier is generated based on the determined current scanning operation mode, and virtual STA instances are created and initial physical radio frequency links are allocated based on the mode decision identifier; Based on the current scanning operation mode and the number of frequency bands to be scanned, a virtual STA instance corresponding to each frequency band to be scanned is dynamically created. Each virtual STA instance is a logical STA entity created by the software layer. Each virtual STA is responsible for scanning one or more frequency bands and interacts with the physical hardware layer through a standardized interface. Each virtual STA is destroyed after scanning is completed. Based on the current scanning operation mode, perform initial physical radio frequency link allocation for each virtual STA instance, and perform channel scanning operation for each frequency band according to the allocation results; During the scanning process, the scanning progress status data of each virtual STA instance is monitored in real time to determine whether there are any virtual STA instances that have completed the scanning of each frequency band channel; When it is detected that any virtual STA instance has completed the full channel scan of the corresponding frequency band, the physical radio frequency link occupied by the virtual STA instance is immediately released and a release completion signal is generated. Meanwhile, based on the release completion signal, the remaining uncompleted channel scanning target virtual STA instances are traversed, and the released physical radio frequency links are dynamically allocated to the target virtual STA instances to help accelerate the scanning of their remaining channels until all virtual STA instances have completed channel scanning. After all virtual STA instances have completed channel scanning, the raw scan data of single-band APs output by all virtual STA instances is obtained, and the raw scan data of multi-band APs from the same source are deduplicated and correlated and integrated to generate an AP list. In this embodiment, the AP list is returned to the upper-layer application module that initiated the scanning request, and the roaming candidate cache inside the system is updated at the same time. When the upper-layer application module selects an AP in the AP list to connect to, it determines the frequency band with the highest signal strength or the best channel idleness as the target connection frequency band based on the multi-band information corresponding to the AP, and initiates a connection request.

[0022] In this embodiment, three modes—fully parallel, hybrid, and intelligent time-division—are precisely distinguished based on standardized hardware descriptors, and corresponding virtual STA instances dedicated to each frequency band are created. This deeply couples the scanning strategy with the number of physical RF links and the multi-link transceiver capabilities, fundamentally avoiding link idleness or conflicts caused by traditional fixed scanning methods. A real-time monitoring of scanning progress and a link release-redistribution mechanism are introduced, allowing virtual STAs that have completed their tasks to immediately release RF resources and dynamically empower uncompleted instances. This achieves dynamic self-optimization of link utilization, significantly shortening the total scanning time for multiple frequency bands. Furthermore, each virtual STA only exists within the scanning cycle, avoiding long-term occupation of system resources. A fused AP list is provided to the upper layer, enabling connection decisions to consider both coverage quality and interference avoidance. This approach has broad adaptability and engineering practicality, improving scanning real-time performance and reducing connection switching latency, providing reliable technical support for multi-band roaming scenarios.

[0023] In this embodiment, the dynamic creation of virtual STA instances corresponding one-to-one with each frequency band to be scanned specifically includes: Iterate through the list of frequency bands to be scanned in the standardized hardware capability descriptor and obtain each frequency band to be scanned in the list of frequency bands to be scanned. Based on the virtual STA manager, a virtual STA instance corresponding to each frequency band to be scanned is generated, and a unique identifier and scan task buffer are assigned to each virtual STA instance; Each virtual STA instance pre-stores the channel scanning sequence for the corresponding frequency band, the scanning state machine (including states such as idle, scanning, waiting for resources, scanning paused, and scanning completed), and the interactive command queue for interfacing with the physical hardware layer to receive control commands, without pre-binding any physical radio frequency link.

[0024] In this embodiment, the initial physical radio frequency link allocation for each virtual STA instance is performed based on the current scanning operation mode, specifically including: When the current scanning operation mode is fully parallel mode, a corresponding physical radio frequency link is allocated to each virtual STA instance, and each virtual STA instance synchronously performs channel scanning operation of the corresponding frequency band based on the allocation result; When the current scanning operation mode is hybrid mode, the total number of channels in each frequency band to be scanned is obtained. Based on the total number of channels in each frequency band, the virtual STA instances are prioritized. Based on the ranking result, the corresponding physical radio frequency links are preferentially allocated to the virtual STA instances with higher ranking, usually 6GHz and 5GHz. The remaining virtual STA instances share the unallocated physical radio frequency links through time division multiplexing and take turns performing scans. The virtual STA instances corresponding to the frequency band with a larger total number of channels have higher link allocation priority. The specific scheduling method of time division multiplexing is as follows: according to the priority order of virtual STA instances, a fixed-length time slice is allocated to each remaining instance. Each instance exclusively occupies the physical radio frequency link within its time slice to complete the channel scan of the corresponding frequency band. The time slice length is allocated proportionally according to the number of remaining channels in each frequency band. When an instance completes the scan of all remaining channels within its time slice, its remaining time slice is automatically yielded to the next instance.

[0025] When the current scanning operation mode is intelligent time-division mode, each virtual STA instance shares a unique physical radio frequency link and generates a frequency band switching sequence. Each virtual STA instance takes turns binding to the physical radio frequency link based on the generated frequency band switching sequence and performs channel scanning of the corresponding frequency band in sequence. After obtaining the link binding, each virtual STA instance completes all channel scanning of its corresponding frequency band, and then unbinds and hands over the link to the next virtual STA instance in the sequence. The frequency band switching sequence is jointly determined by the most recently successfully connected frequency band information, the number of channels in each frequency band, and the frequency band information where the target SSID has appeared in history. In this embodiment, in the fully parallel mode or the hybrid mode, the physical radio frequency links bound to each virtual STA instance are recorded in the resource allocation table when the scan starts, and each virtual STA instance independently maintains its current scan progress during the scan process, including the list of scanned channels and the list of remaining channels.

[0026] In this embodiment, generating a frequency band switching sequence specifically includes: Acquire historical connection data of the device, filter valid WiFi communication link data with successful connection in the historical connection data, extract the target working frequency band of the most recent link connection in the valid WiFi communication link data, and determine it as the first scan frequency band of the first scan. Obtain the number of non-target frequency band channels in each frequency band to be scanned, excluding the target working frequency band, and sort the non-target frequency bands according to the sorting rule of the number of non-target frequency band channels from smallest to largest to generate an initial frequency band sequence; Obtain the target SSID carried in the WiFi scan trigger request, retrieve all historical connection records that match the target SSID from the historical connection data, and extract the historical frequency bands in which the target SSID has appeared in all historical connection records. The historical camping frequency bands in the initial frequency band sequence are moved forward to the front of the non-historical camping frequency bands, and the original relative order of the historical camping frequency bands in ascending order of channel number is maintained. A frequency band switching sequence is generated, which is then sent out and stored in the interactive command queue of each virtual STA instance. Each instance obtains link binding and performs scanning in sequence according to the corresponding frequency band order in the sequence.

[0027] In this embodiment, by constructing a software-layer decoupled architecture for scanning tasks, each virtual STA is not pre-bound to a physical link, providing a flexible resource configuration basis. The allocation strategy ensures that radio frequency resources are precisely allocated to high-value frequency bands, avoiding blind polling. In particular, the sequence generation logic in the intelligent time-division mode integrates historical behavior and channel load, significantly reducing the total time consumed by a single radio frequency device in multi-band scanning. At the same time, each virtual STA independently maintains scanning progress and resource allocation tables, providing accurate data support for subsequent dynamic release and reallocation of links, improving scanning real-time performance and connection response speed. It is compatible with heterogeneous hardware from low-power IoT to high-performance WiFi 7 chips, has outstanding adaptability and wide deployment applicability, and achieves more intelligent and efficient scanning scheduling.

[0028] In this embodiment, generating the frequency band switching sequence further includes: After scanning all channels in the current frequency band based on the frequency band switching sequence, the scanning completion timestamp of the last channel in the current frequency band is collected, and the real-time working status parameters of the physical radio frequency link at the current moment are recorded, including the current center frequency, channel bandwidth and radio frequency gain level. Based on the frequency band switching type between the current frequency band and the next frequency band to be scanned, obtain the corresponding link switching delay value from the preset delay configuration table; The calibration scan start time for the physical RF link to switch from the current working state to the target working state is calculated based on the scan completion timestamp and the link switching delay value. Based on the calibration scan start time, scan timing adjustment parameters are generated, calibration is performed based on the scan timing adjustment parameters, the physical RF link is triggered to perform frequency band switching operation, and the scan of the first channel of the next scanned frequency band is started when the planned scan start time arrives; After completing the current sub-band switching and the first channel scan, calculate the actual deviation between the actual scan start time and the planned scan start time. Use the actual deviation as a feedback compensation factor to calculate the scan start time of the first channel of the next sub-band to be scanned in subsequent frequency band switching. In this embodiment, by switching between frequency bands using virtual STA instances, and combining the scanning end time of the last scanned channel in the current frequency band with the preset link switching delay, the scanning start time of the first channel in the next scanned frequency band is accurately calculated. Based on the calculated start time, the physical hardware layer synchronization clock is calibrated and adjusted to ensure accurate synchronization of the scanning timing.

[0029] In this embodiment, immediately releasing the physical radio frequency link occupied by the virtual STA instance and generating a release completion signal specifically includes: When the current status flag of any virtual STA instance is updated to the scan completed status, the link reclamation scheduling mechanism is triggered. The link reclamation scheduling mechanism locates and releases the binding relationship between the virtual STA instance and the physical radio frequency link it occupies based on the frequency band identifier of the virtual STA instance and the initial physical radio frequency link allocation record. Based on the link recycling scheduling mechanism, the status of the released physical radio frequency link is determined to be idle and schedulable. The idle status identifier and release timestamp of the physical radio frequency link are integrated to generate a release completion signal, which is then pushed to the resource scheduling queue. Traverse the resource scheduling queue, filter candidate virtual STA instances whose current status flag is "scanning" and whose unscanned channel list is not empty, and construct a candidate link scheduling instance set; Based on the number of channels in the unscanned channel list corresponding to each candidate virtual STA instance, the candidate virtual STA instances in the candidate link scheduling instance set are prioritized from most to least. Based on the ranking results, the candidate virtual STA instance with the highest priority is extracted as the target virtual STA instance. Combined with the RF operating parameters of the target virtual STA instance corresponding to the operating frequency band, it is determined whether the released physical RF link meets the operating conditions of the operating frequency band. If satisfied, a temporary scheduling binding relationship is established with the target virtual STA instance based on the unique identifier of the released physical radio frequency link; After the temporary binding relationship is established, the remaining channels in the unscanned channel list of the target virtual STA instance are scanned in parallel based on the original physical radio frequency link of the target virtual STA instance and the temporarily scheduled binding physical radio frequency link.

[0030] In this embodiment, after parallel scanning, the process further includes: During the parallel scanning process, the first scan result set and the second scan result set are obtained based on the original physical radio frequency link of the target virtual STA instance and the physical radio frequency link based on the temporary scheduling binding relationship, respectively. Based on the channel identifier, the first scan result set and the second scan result set are merged to generate the scan result merge set of the target virtual STA instance; When all channels in the unscanned channel list are covered by either the first scan result set or the second scan result set, the target virtual STA instance is determined to have completed the scan. Update the current status flag of the target virtual STA instance to scan complete, remove the temporary scheduling binding relationship, and reset the link status of the corresponding physical radio frequency link to idle and schedulable.

[0031] In this embodiment, an independent status record table is created for each virtual STA instance. The status record table includes the frequency band identifier corresponding to the virtual STA instance, the list of scanned channels, the list of unscanned channels, and the current status flag. The current status flag includes ready, scanning, completed, and released. The status record tables of each virtual STA instance are synchronously stored in the resource scheduling queue. The real-time scanning progress of each virtual STA instance is obtained by periodically polling the current status flag and the list of scanned channels of each virtual STA instance in the resource scheduling queue. When the polled list of scanned channels of any virtual STA instance covers all channels of its corresponding frequency band, the current status flag of the virtual STA instance is updated to completed. For example, taking the US FCC frequency band allocation as an example, assuming the device has 3 RF links, allocated to V-STA_2.4G, V-STA_5G, and V-STA_6G respectively; since there are only 11 available channels in the 2.4GHz area, V-STA_2.4G completes the scan first; at this time, V-STA_6G is still scanning because there are 59 available channels in the 6GHz band in this area; the manager allocates the RF link released by V-STA_2.4G to the 6GHz side, helping V-STA_6G to receive the remaining channels in parallel; subsequently, V-STA_5G completes the scanning of 25 channels in its assigned frequency band and releases RF2 resources, which the manager also injects and allocates to the 6GHz auxiliary scan; at this time, V-STA_6G simultaneously obtains two auxiliary channels, RF1 and RF2, and enters the full-speed scanning stage of "RF1 + RF2 auxiliary", thereby significantly shortening the scanning time of the remaining channels in the 6GHz band and finally quickly completing the scanning of all channels.

[0032] In this embodiment, based on the status record table and resource scheduling queue, the virtual STA that has completed the scan triggers link unbinding and idle flag generation. The released links are dynamically bound to the candidate instances with the heaviest scanning load in order of the number of remaining channels. At the same time, the remaining channels of the same frequency band are received in parallel by dual links and the scan results are merged to realize the directional tilt of radio frequency resources to the bottleneck frequency band. This makes the link reallocation in hybrid mode and intelligent time-division mode more targeted and timely. In particular, it significantly reduces the total scanning time in high channel number frequency bands. The status table polling and temporary binding mechanism ensures the seamless connection between resource reclamation and reallocation, taking into account scanning efficiency and system stability, and has higher adaptive scheduling capability and engineering feasibility.

[0033] In this embodiment, obtaining the hardware parameters of the current radio frequency chip further includes: Obtain the trigger type of this WiFi scan trigger request, including user manual trigger, timed trigger, and roaming event trigger. Match the trigger type with the preset scan strategy table to determine the scan depth type for this scan. When the trigger type is user manual trigger or timed trigger, the scan depth type is determined to be full-band depth scan, the first scan depth identifier is generated, and the full list of frequency bands to be scanned is used as the scan range. When the trigger type is roaming event trigger, the scan depth type is determined to be partial frequency band fast scan, and a second scan depth identifier is generated; Based on the second scan depth identifier, the target working frequency band is extracted from the historical connection data of the device as the main scan frequency band, and the original scan data of historical APs in the main scan frequency band is obtained, and the channel records are extracted as a subset of channels to be scanned. The main scanning frequency band and the subset of channels to be scanned are associated and integrated to generate a scanning constraint descriptor, and the scanning constraint descriptor is encapsulated with a standardized hardware capability descriptor. Based on the WiFi scan trigger request carrying the scan restriction condition descriptor, a virtual STA instance corresponding to the main scan frequency band is created, so that the virtual STA instance only scans channels within the subset of channels to be scanned.

[0034] In this embodiment, by generating full-band deep scan or partial-band fast scan identifiers and associating historical channel records of APs with historical connection data for roaming scenarios, a scan constraint descriptor is constructed. This narrows the scan range from all channels across the entire frequency band to historically valid channels within the roaming target frequency band, significantly reducing the number of invalid air interface probes and channel dwell time. Especially during roaming handover, it can quickly obtain the latest signal quality of candidate APs, accelerating roaming decisions and link handover processes. At the same time, it ensures the consistency of resource allocation, intelligently associates trigger types with historical behaviors, effectively reduces roaming latency, power consumption, and air interface overhead. It is suitable for real-time roaming optimization of mobile terminals and energy-saving scanning of low-power IoT devices, realizing on-demand and precise scan scheduling, and significantly improving overall scanning efficiency and user experience.

[0035] To better demonstrate the implementation of a WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method based on virtual STA, please refer to [link / reference]. Figure 4 This invention provides a WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning system based on virtual STA, comprising: The application layer includes a roaming decision module and a scan result aggregation module. The roaming decision module initiates a WiFi scan trigger request through the scan trigger entry and sends it to the virtual STA management layer. The scan result aggregation module receives the AP list returned by the virtual STA management layer through the scan result return exit. The virtual STA management layer, connecting the application layer and the physical hardware layer, includes: The hardware detection unit is used to obtain the RF chip hardware parameters of the physical hardware layer through the driver interface and generate a hardware capability descriptor. The instance management unit is used to create a corresponding virtual STA instance for each frequency band based on the list of frequency bands to be scanned in the hardware capability descriptor. The mode selection unit is used to compare the number of physical RF links in the hardware capability descriptor with the number of frequency bands to be scanned, and select the full parallel mode, hybrid mode or intelligent time division mode according to the comparison result. The resource scheduling unit is used to allocate physical radio frequency links to each virtual STA instance according to the selected mode, monitor the scanning progress of each instance during the scanning process, release the physical radio frequency link it occupies after any instance completes the scan, and dynamically reallocate the released link to virtual STA instances that have not completed the scan to accelerate the scan. The scanning execution unit is used to drive each virtual STA instance to perform channel scanning operations for the corresponding frequency band according to the allocated physical link and the selected mode; The result aggregation unit is used to collect the raw scan data of single-band APs output by each instance after all virtual STA instances have completed scanning, deduplicatize and merge multi-band APs with the same source, generate a unified AP list, and return the AP list to the scan result aggregation module. The physical hardware layer includes the WiFi radio frequency chip and the corresponding multiple physical radio frequency links. The number of physical radio frequency links and the supported frequency band information are read by the hardware detection unit as inherent hardware parameters. The physical hardware layer is also used to respond to scan drive commands issued by the scan execution unit via the drive interface and to perform actual channel scanning operations on each physical RF link.

[0036] In the above embodiments, by constructing a three-layer decoupled architecture, scanning strategy generation, resource allocation, task scheduling and result processing are completely decoupled at the software level. Hardware detection ensures accurate matching between the strategy and the actual capabilities of the device. Resource scheduling and mode selection work together to achieve the transition from static allocation to dynamic tilting of the link. Result aggregation improves the quality of upper-layer data, enabling the system to adapt to different RF topologies and significantly compress the total scanning time in hybrid and time-division modes. At the same time, it reduces roaming handover latency and air interface overhead. This not only realizes intelligent and modular management of scanning scheduling, but also effectively supports a variety of engineering application scenarios.

[0037] The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention, but the scope of protection of the present invention is not limited thereto. Any equivalent substitutions or modifications made by those skilled in the art within the scope of the technology disclosed in the present invention, based on the technical solution and inventive concept of the present invention, should be covered within the scope of protection of the present invention.

Claims

1. A WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method based on virtual STA, characterized in that, Includes the following steps: Based on the WiFi scanning trigger request, the hardware parameters of the current RF chip are obtained through the driver interface, and a standardized hardware capability descriptor is generated, including the list of frequency bands to be scanned, the number of physical RF links, and the multi-link transceiver capability identifier. The current scanning operation mode is determined based on the standardized hardware capability descriptor, and virtual STA instances corresponding to each frequency band to be scanned are dynamically created according to the current scanning operation mode and the number of frequency bands to be scanned. Based on the current scanning operation mode, perform initial physical radio frequency link allocation for each virtual STA instance, and perform channel scanning operation for each frequency band according to the allocation results; During the scanning process, the scanning progress status data of each virtual STA instance is monitored in real time to determine whether there are any virtual STA instances that have completed the scanning of each frequency band channel; When it is detected that any virtual STA instance has completed the full channel scan of the corresponding frequency band, the physical radio frequency link occupied by the virtual STA instance is immediately released and a release completion signal is generated. Simultaneously, based on the release completion signal, the remaining uncompleted channel scan target virtual STA instances are traversed, and the released physical radio frequency links are dynamically allocated to the target virtual STA instances until all virtual STA instances have completed channel scans; Once all virtual STA instances have completed channel scanning, the raw scan data of single-band APs output by all virtual STA instances is obtained, and the raw scan data of APs is deduplicated and integrated to generate an AP list.

2. The WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method based on virtual STA as described in claim 1, characterized in that, The specific process for determining the current scanning operation mode includes: Compare the number of physical RF links in the standardized hardware capability descriptor with the number of each frequency band to be scanned in the list of frequency bands to be scanned. When the number of physical RF links is greater than or equal to the number of frequency bands to be scanned, the current scanning operation mode is determined to be the fully parallel mode. When the number of physical RF links is less than the number of frequency bands to be scanned but greater than 1, the current scanning operation mode is determined to be hybrid mode; When the number of physical RF links is equal to 1, the current scanning operation mode is determined to be intelligent time-division mode; Simultaneously, a mode decision identifier is generated based on the determined current scanning operation mode, and a virtual STA instance is created and an initial physical radio frequency link is allocated based on the mode decision identifier.

3. The WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method based on virtual STA as described in claim 1, characterized in that, The dynamic creation of virtual STA instances corresponding one-to-one with each frequency band to be scanned specifically includes: Iterate through the list of frequency bands to be scanned in the standardized hardware capability descriptor and obtain each frequency band to be scanned in the list of frequency bands to be scanned. Based on the virtual STA manager, a virtual STA instance corresponding to each frequency band to be scanned is generated, and a unique identifier and scan task buffer are assigned to each virtual STA instance; Each virtual STA instance pre-stores the channel scan sequence, scan state machine, and interactive command queue for the corresponding frequency band.

4. The WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method based on virtual STA as described in claim 1, characterized in that, The initial physical radio frequency link allocation for each virtual STA instance based on the current scanning operation mode specifically includes: When the current scanning operation mode is fully parallel mode, a corresponding physical radio frequency link is allocated to each virtual STA instance, and each virtual STA instance synchronously performs channel scanning operation of the corresponding frequency band based on the allocation result; When the current scanning operation mode is mixed mode, the total number of channels in each frequency band to be scanned is obtained, and each virtual STA instance is prioritized based on the total number of channels in each frequency band. The corresponding physical radio frequency link is allocated first based on the ranking result, and the remaining virtual STA instances share the unallocated physical radio frequency link. They take turns to perform scanning according to priority order, and the time slice length is allocated proportionally according to the number of remaining channels in each frequency band. When any virtual STA instance completes scanning all remaining channels in its corresponding time slice, its unused time slice is automatically given to the next virtual STA instance in priority order. When the current scanning operation mode is intelligent time-division mode, each virtual STA instance shares a unique physical radio frequency link and generates a frequency band switching sequence. Each virtual STA instance takes turns binding to the physical radio frequency link based on the generated frequency band switching sequence and performs channel scanning of the corresponding frequency band in sequence.

5. The WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method based on virtual STA as described in claim 4, characterized in that, The generated frequency band switching sequence specifically includes: Acquire historical connection data of the device, filter valid WiFi communication link data from the historical connection data, and extract the target operating frequency band from the valid WiFi communication link data; Obtain the number of non-target frequency band channels in each frequency band to be scanned, excluding the target working frequency band, and sort the non-target frequency bands according to the sorting rule of the number of non-target frequency band channels from smallest to largest to generate an initial frequency band sequence; Obtain the target SSID carried in the WiFi scan trigger request, retrieve all historical connection records that match the target SSID from the historical connection data, and extract the historical camping frequency bands from all historical connection records; The historically residing frequency bands in the initial frequency band sequence are moved forward to the front of the non-historically residing frequency bands to generate a frequency band switching sequence.

6. The WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method based on virtual STA as described in claim 5, characterized in that, The generation of the frequency band switching sequence further includes: After scanning all channels of the current frequency band based on the frequency band switching sequence, the scanning completion timestamp of the current frequency band is collected, and the real-time working status parameters of the physical radio frequency link at the current moment are recorded. Based on the frequency band switching type between the current frequency band and the next frequency band to be scanned, obtain the corresponding link switching delay value from the preset delay configuration table; The calibration scan start time for the physical RF link to switch from the current working state to the target working state is calculated based on the scan completion timestamp and the link switching delay value. Based on the calibration scan start time, scan timing adjustment parameters are generated, calibration is performed based on the scan timing adjustment parameters, and the scan of the first channel of the next scanned frequency band is started when the planned scan start time arrives; After completing the current sub-band switching and the first channel scan, the actual deviation between the actual scan start time and the planned scan start time is calculated. The actual deviation is used as a feedback compensation factor for calculating the scan start time of the first channel of the next scanned frequency band in subsequent frequency band switching.

7. The WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method based on virtual STA as described in claim 1, characterized in that, The immediate release of the physical radio frequency link occupied by the virtual STA instance and the generation of a release completion signal specifically include: When the current status flag of any virtual STA instance is updated to the scan completed status, the link reclamation scheduling mechanism is triggered. Based on the link recycling scheduling mechanism, the status of the released physical radio frequency link is determined to be idle and schedulable. The idle status identifier and release timestamp of the physical radio frequency link are integrated to generate a release completion signal, which is then pushed to the resource scheduling queue. Traverse the resource scheduling queue, filter candidate virtual STA instances whose current status flag is "scanning" and whose unscanned channel list is not empty, and construct a candidate link scheduling instance set; Based on the number of channels in the unscanned channel list corresponding to each candidate virtual STA instance, the candidate virtual STA instances in the candidate link scheduling instance set are prioritized. Based on the ranking results, the candidate virtual STA instance with the highest priority is extracted as the target virtual STA instance. Combined with the RF operating parameters of the target virtual STA instance corresponding to the operating frequency band, it is determined whether the released physical RF link meets the operating conditions of the operating frequency band. If satisfied, a temporary scheduling binding relationship is established with the target virtual STA instance based on the unique identifier of the released physical radio frequency link; After the temporary binding relationship is established, the remaining channels in the unscanned channel list of the target virtual STA instance are scanned in parallel based on the original physical radio frequency link of the target virtual STA instance and the temporarily scheduled binding physical radio frequency link.

8. The WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method based on virtual STA as described in claim 7, characterized in that, Following the parallel scan, the process also includes: During the parallel scanning process, the first scan result set and the second scan result set are obtained based on the original physical radio frequency link of the target virtual STA instance and the physical radio frequency link based on the temporary scheduling binding relationship, respectively. Based on the channel identifier, the first scan result set and the second scan result set are merged to generate the scan result merge set of the target virtual STA instance; When all channels in the unscanned channel list are covered by either the first scan result set or the second scan result set, the target virtual STA instance is determined to have completed the scan. Update the current status flag of the target virtual STA instance to scan complete, remove the temporary scheduling binding relationship, and reset the link status of the corresponding physical radio frequency link to idle and schedulable.

9. The WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method based on virtual STA as described in claim 1, characterized in that, The process of obtaining the hardware parameters of the current radio frequency chip also includes: Obtain the trigger type of this WiFi scan trigger request, match the trigger type with the preset scan strategy table, and determine the scan depth type for this scan; When the trigger type is user manual trigger or timed trigger, the scan depth type is determined to be full-band depth scan, the first scan depth identifier is generated, and the full list of frequency bands to be scanned is used as the scan range. When the trigger type is roaming event trigger, the scan depth type is determined to be partial frequency band fast scan, and a second scan depth identifier is generated; Based on the second scan depth identifier, the target working frequency band is extracted from the historical connection data of the device as the main scan frequency band, and the original scan data of historical APs in the main scan frequency band is obtained, and the channel records are extracted as a subset of channels to be scanned. The main scanning frequency band and the subset of channels to be scanned are associated and integrated to generate a scanning constraint descriptor, and the scanning constraint descriptor is encapsulated with a standardized hardware capability descriptor. Based on the WiFi scan trigger request carrying the scan restriction descriptor, a virtual STA instance corresponding to the main scan frequency band is created.

10. A WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning system based on virtual STA, applied in the WiFi multi-band intelligent scanning method based on virtual STA as described in claim 1, characterized in that, include: The application layer includes a roaming decision module and a scan result aggregation module. The roaming decision module initiates a WiFi scan trigger request through the scan trigger entry, and the scan result aggregation module receives and returns the AP list through the scan result return exit. The virtual STA management layer includes: The hardware detection unit is used to obtain the RF chip hardware parameters of the physical hardware layer through the driver interface and generate a hardware capability descriptor. The instance management unit is used to create a corresponding virtual STA instance for each frequency band based on the list of frequency bands to be scanned in the hardware capability descriptor. The mode selection unit is used to compare the number of physical RF links in the hardware capability descriptor with the number of frequency bands to be scanned, and select the full parallel mode, hybrid mode or intelligent time division mode according to the comparison result. The resource scheduling unit is used to allocate physical radio frequency links to each virtual STA instance according to the selected mode, monitor the scanning progress of each instance during the scanning process, release the physical radio frequency link it occupies after any instance completes the scan, and dynamically reallocate the released link to virtual STA instances that have not completed the scan to accelerate the scan. The scanning execution unit is used to drive each virtual STA instance to perform channel scanning operations for the corresponding frequency band according to the allocated physical link and the selected mode; The result aggregation unit is used to collect the raw scan data of single-band APs output by each instance after all virtual STA instances have completed scanning, deduplicatize and merge multi-band APs with the same source, generate a unified AP list, and return the AP list to the scan result aggregation module. The physical hardware layer includes the WiFi radio frequency chip and the corresponding multiple physical radio frequency links. The number of physical radio frequency links and the supported frequency band information are read by the hardware detection unit as inherent hardware parameters. The physical hardware layer is also used to respond to scan drive commands issued by the scan execution unit via the drive interface and to perform actual channel scanning operations on each physical RF link.

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