CN115243242A

CN115243242A - Multi-probe wifi testing method and system

Info

Publication number: CN115243242A
Application number: CN202210925929.XA
Authority: CN
Inventors: 滑国青
Original assignee: Shenzhen Mailing Information Technology Co ltd
Current assignee: Shenzhen Mailing Information Technology Co ltd
Priority date: 2022-08-03
Filing date: 2022-08-03
Publication date: 2022-10-25

Abstract

The invention discloses a multi-probe wifi testing method and system, which comprises a plurality of probes, a plurality of wifi chip modules, a plurality of wifi signal monitoring units and a wifi testing system host; the wifi chip module is connected with the wifi signal monitoring unit through a usb bus HUB; the wifi signal monitoring unit is connected with the wifi testing system host through an Ethernet local area network. The method specifically comprises the following steps: s1, initializing; s2, processing a data plane; s3, processing a control plane; s4, controlling a wifi testing process and summarizing and processing testing data; by adopting the multiple probes, the invention can monitor the wifi space signal of the DUT equipment from each position in space, and can more comprehensively evaluate the whole wifi performance of the equipment from only one position compared with the prior art. When the multi-probe signal is subjected to average processing, the antenna position becomes relatively insensitive, so that the installation position requirements of a DUT antenna and the position requirements of a DUT in a test box are greatly reduced, and false alarm are reduced.

Description

Multi-probe wifi testing method and system

Technical Field

The invention belongs to the technical field of antenna test tools, and particularly relates to a multi-probe wifi test method and system.

Background

At present, a large amount of devices on the market realize internet surfing and communication functions through wifi, and when the distance between the devices and a router is far away or a partition wall is formed, the wifi devices with design defects can easily cause the devices to frequently drop or even be incapable of being successfully connected with the router. Therefore, before leaving the factory, testing wifi of the equipment becomes a vital quality guarantee means. At present, most of universal wifi testing means are that a DUT is placed on an antenna coupling plate, a shielding box is additionally arranged, and then a wifi tester is used for performing wifi testing, such as an IQ view tester.

The wifi test is carried out by using a wifi comprehensive tester, which is really feasible, but the testing equipment has the defects that (1) the equipment is very expensive; the test device is very large in investment (2) a shielding box needs to be added, and the requirement on the test environment is high; (3) The requirement on the antenna installation consistency of equipment is high, and the tested signal is obviously changed due to slight deviation of the antenna installation position; the method has the advantages that one coupling plate is used, only one direction can be subjected to signal evaluation, and sometimes the signal of one direction does not represent the whole wifi signal, so that the problems of false alarm and missed alarm of a test result often occur; (4) When the factory is produced on a large scale, the wifi test must use a special fixed-frequency program for testing, the router cannot be connected, the wifi network cannot communicate with a DUT (device under test), and an independent test flow and a test station are needed, so that the factory production cost is increased more.

Aiming at the defects of the prior art, a multi-probe wifi testing method and a multi-probe wifi testing system are provided, and the purpose is as follows: (1) the cost of the test system is reduced; (2) reducing the production cost of large-scale production in factories; (3) Evaluating wifi performance of the DUT in multiple spatial orientations through a spatial multi-probe technology; (4) The sensitivity of the test system to the position of the DUT antenna and the test placing position is reduced, and the problems of false report and missing report of the test system are reduced; and (5) carrying out wifi communication with the DUT during testing.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide a multi-probe wifi testing method and a multi-probe wifi testing system, which aim to solve the problems in the background technology.

In order to achieve the purpose, the invention provides the following technical scheme: a multi-probe wifi testing method specifically comprises the following steps:

s1, initialization processing:

step S11: loading the drive of the wifi chip module;

step S12: discovering and starting all probes, wherein each probe logically corresponds to one wifi interface network card;

step S13: setting all wifi interface network cards to enter a monitor working mode and a promiscuous mode;

step S14: setting working channels of all wifi interface network cards;

s2, data plane processing:

step S21: establishing a socket for receiving messages for each wifi interface;

step S22: creating a thread, and receiving a message on a socket, namely packet capturing;

step S23: the message contains a radio tap head which contains wifi information, and the transmission mode, the working speed and the signal intensity information corresponding to the message are analyzed from a radio tap protocol header;

step S24: filtering out messages meeting the requirements by taking a working channel, a working mode, a working speed and a source mac address as filtering conditions according to the test requirements, and recording wifi information meeting the requirements;

step S25: storing the obtained wifi information into a database for later use;

step S26: turning to step S22, circularly receiving the message until receiving an exit command;

s3, control plane processing: the system is used for dynamically changing message filtering conditions according to test requirements, switching monitoring channel control work, and providing a data access interface for a wifi test system host;

s4, controlling a wifi testing process and summarizing and processing testing data:

step S41, test preparation: before testing, the DUT needs to be connected with the router in advance and placed on a test bench, and then point testing is started;

and S42, judging whether the automatic control of the DUT to enter a specified test mode and sending a packet is realized, wherein the specified test mode refers to setting which channel, which working mode and which working rate are fixedly used by the DUT for data communication. If the test system has implemented an automatic control interface with the DUT, go to step S44; if not, go to step S43;

step S43: controlling the DUT to perform data communication by other external modes according to the working channel, the working mode and the working speed required by the test, then continuing the test, and turning to the step S45;

step S44: automatically controlling the DUT to carry out data communication according to a working channel, a working mode and a working speed required by the test;

step S45: acquiring or inputting a mac address of the DUT (device under test) for filtering wifi message data;

step S46: acquiring or inputting a test channel, a working mode and a working speed of a DUT (device under test);

step S47: controlling all wifi signal monitoring units, and taking source mac, working mode, working speed and channel as packet capturing and filtering conditions;

step S48: acquiring data of all wifi signal monitoring units so as to obtain data of all probes;

step S49: according to the spatial distribution of the probes, the probes are logically grouped, for example, all the probes are grouped into one group, such as probes No. 1 to 12 in FIG. 2, which represent omnidirectional comprehensive signals; all probes in the horizontal section are grouped, as probes 5 to 8 in fig. 2, representing the horizontal plane average signal; the upper horizontal cross-sections are grouped into groups, such as probes 1 through 4 in FIG. 2, representing the average signal at the top of the DUT; the lower horizontal cross-sections are grouped into groups, such as probes 9 through 12 in fig. 2, representing the DUT lower average signal, etc. Then respectively calculating data such as average signal intensity, standard deviation and the like;

because the wifi signal may fluctuate or be interfered, when calculating the average value of the signal, the signal data which is interfered too much or whose signal intensity is not reliable is filtered by a mathematical means according to the normal distribution characteristic of the signal;

step S410: calculating each index according to the test standard, and judging whether each test item passes or not;

these indicators, such as the signal intensity of a certain azimuth probe, the average signal intensity of the omnidirectional synthesis, the average signal intensity of the horizontal plane, the average signal intensity of a certain section, the signal gain of a certain section, etc.;

step S411: carrying out alarm display and archiving processing on the test result;

step S412: judging whether enough data volume is collected to automatically exit the test or manually exit the test, and if the test needs to be continuously repeated, turning to the step S48; otherwise, the test is finished.

And the initialization processing of the step S1 is to enable the wifi chip module to enter a state of monitoring wifi aerial messages.

And the data plane processing of the step S1 is to circularly process the reception of the wifi message and analyze wifi information from the message.

The invention also provides a testing system of the multi-probe wifi testing method, which comprises a plurality of probes, a plurality of wifi chip modules, a plurality of wifi signal monitoring units and a wifi testing system host;

the wifi chip module is connected with the wifi signal monitoring unit through a usb bus HUB; the wifi signal monitoring unit is connected with the wifi testing system host through an Ethernet local area network.

The probe is a wifi antenna, is arranged on the test box and is used for receiving wifi physical electrical signals of the DUT from a plurality of directions;

the test box is used for installing probes and placing a DUT (device under test);

the wifi chip module is connected with the probe and used for receiving the aerial physical wifi electric signals captured by the probe and converting the aerial physical wifi electric signals into wifi data messages for further analyzing wifi information in a subsequent process, and when the wifi chip module is selected, a chip supporting a monitor function needs to be selected;

the Wifi signal monitoring unit captures a Wifi data message through a Wifi chip module, and then analyzes the corresponding transmitted signal intensity, working channel, working mode and working speed Wifi basic special parameters of the Wifi message from the message, and uses the parameters as basic test data;

the plurality of probes, the plurality of wifi chip modules and a wifi signal monitoring unit are connected and communicated through a USB bus, and the combination of the probes, the wifi chip modules and the wifi signal monitoring unit is equivalent to an embedded computer with a plurality of wifi network cards;

the Wifi test system host and the Wifi signal monitoring units are connected in a loose coupling mode through an Ethernet local area network, all the Wifi signal monitoring units are controlled, designated working channels, working modes, working channels and aerial messages of designated source mac addresses are grabbed, and then after all probe data are collected, a series of test indexes are obtained through operation and used for generating test conclusions.

Compared with the prior art, the invention has the beneficial effects that: according to the multi-probe wifi testing method and system, the multi-probe is adopted, wifi space signals of the DUT equipment can be monitored from all spatial directions, and compared with the prior art, the method and system can be used for evaluating the whole wifi performance of the equipment more comprehensively from one direction.

The layout of the multiple probes in the test box has symmetry, when the positions of the DUT antennae are offset, the multiple probes are complementary, so that the antenna positions become relatively insensitive after the multiple probes are subjected to average processing, the requirements on the installation positions of the DUT antennae and the positions of the DUTs in the test box are greatly reduced, and false reports are reduced.

During testing, wifi communication of the DUT is not affected, and the DUT equipment can be controlled during testing.

The test can be performed without using a shielded box. The wifi signal that the probe snatched is complete wifi message, and the message itself has qualified SNR, has carried out smooth processing to the wifi signal after, and signal interference killing feature strengthens, and signal output is more stable.

After grouping statistical analysis is carried out on the multiple probes, various indexes such as signal evaluation indexes of all cross sections in space, horizontal antenna gain and the like can be obtained, and the performance of wifi can be evaluated more comprehensively.

The system has simple integral structure and low cost; when the factory is produced, the test can be completed at one time by integrating with other test procedures on one station, and the production test efficiency is greatly improved.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a multi-probe wifi testing system of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the spatial position deployment of 12 probes of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a 6 probe spatial position deployment configuration of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a software processing logic flow of the wifi signal monitoring unit of the present invention;

fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a test flow of the wifi test system host according to the present invention.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present invention, and not all of the embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments given herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

The invention provides a multi-probe wifi test system, namely a test system of a multi-probe wifi test method, the system structure chart is shown in figure 1, and the system structure chart is composed of a plurality of probes (wifi antennas), a plurality of wifi chip modules, a plurality of wifi signal monitoring units and a wifi test system host; the wifi chip module is connected with the wifi signal monitoring unit through a usb bus HUB; the wifi signal monitoring unit is connected with the wifi testing system host through an Ethernet local area network;

the probe shown in FIG. 1, which is a wifi antenna, needs to be mounted on a test box for receiving wifi physical electrical signals of the DUT from multiple orientations;

such as the test box shown in fig. 1, for mounting probes and placing DUTs.

In order to detect the radiation intensity of wifi signals in all directions of the space, the antenna probes should be theoretically installed on a virtual concentric sphere curved surface which is diffused by taking a DUT antenna as a signal radiation origin, and every two probes preferably have spatial symmetry, which may be symmetric with the radiation origin or axisymmetric with the radiation origin as a center in a three-dimensional space.

The wifi chip module shown in fig. 1 is connected to the probe, and is configured to receive an aerial physical wifi electrical signal captured by the probe, and convert the aerial physical wifi electrical signal into a wifi data message for subsequent further analysis of wifi information; when selecting wifi chip module, need select the chip that supports monitor function.

The Wifi signal monitoring unit shown in fig. 1 captures a Wifi data message through a Wifi chip module, and then analyzes basic Wifi special parameters such as transmission signal intensity, a working channel, a working mode and a working rate corresponding to the Wifi message from the message, and uses the parameters as basic test data;

the plurality of probes, the plurality of wifi chip modules and a wifi signal monitoring unit are connected and communicated through a USB bus, and the combination of the plurality of probes, the plurality of wifi chip modules and the wifi signal monitoring unit is equivalent to an embedded computer with a plurality of wifi network cards, namely a wifi probe array submachine shown in figure 1;

because the signal processing capacity of one wifi signal monitoring unit is limited, when the number of the probes is too large, the probes are driven by a plurality of wifi signal monitoring units, and therefore a plurality of wifi probe array submachine

The Wifi test system host shown in fig. 1 is equivalent to a general computer, and is connected with the Wifi signal monitoring units through an ethernet local area network in a loose coupling manner to control all the Wifi signal monitoring units, capture air messages of a designated working channel, a working mode, a working channel and a designated source mac address, collect all probe data, and obtain a series of test indexes for generating a test conclusion through operation.

When the number of the probes in the test system is small, the wifi signal monitoring unit and the wifi test system host can share one computer

The wifi chip module and the wifi signal monitoring unit can be in communication connection by using other communication bus technologies such as sdio and the like besides using a USB bus for communication; the communication of wifi signal monitoring unit and wifi test system host computer except using ethernet, can also use other communication modes such as optic fibre switching to connect.

The shape of the test box is not limited to a cube and can be a sphere, a rhombus and the like;

a shielding box can be added outside the test box to reduce signal interference;

in the system for implementing the present invention, a wifi testing system with 12-way probe and 6-way probe is taken as an example for description.

As shown in fig. 2, the 12-way probe is installed at the midpoint of each edge of a cubic box, although this cubic box is not a sphere, the midpoint of each edge is exactly located on a virtual sphere curved surface, and the DUT device is located at the center of the cubic box, so that the probe space installation requirement is met, and therefore, the cubic box is selected for use, which is only because of easy material availability and easy manufacturing of the bearing cavity of the probe.

As shown in fig. 3, the 6-way probe is installed at the center point of 6 faces of a cubic box, and also meets the space installation requirements of the probe, which can realize the signal detection of the DUT right above and below, right left and right, and right front and back.

Regarding the requirement for the probe bearing cavity, the embodiment is only a preferred scheme, and is not only a cube, as long as the selected cavity can meet the requirement that the cavity is positioned on a virtual concentric sphere curved surface when the probe is installed, so the cavity can also be a sphere, a rhombus or other structures.

The requirement of pairwise space symmetry of the probes does not need to be that the probes are even, and if the probes are odd, the symmetry requirement does not need to be met by the rest single probes except pairwise symmetry;

the probe is required to be positioned on a virtual concentric sphere curved surface, and is not required to be positioned on the same concentric sphere curved surface, and can also be positioned on a plurality of concentric sphere curved surfaces, so that signals of a plurality of radiation curved surfaces can be monitored. For example, the probes in the embodiments of fig. 2 and 3 can be combined to form an 18-way probe; the detection analysis can be performed on a plurality of concentric radiation spheres simultaneously.

The invention also provides a method for monitoring and analyzing wifi signal information in the air, as shown in fig. 4, the method is divided into three parts, namely initialization processing, data plane processing and control plane processing. This method may be implemented in the context of a linux operating system.

Step S1: the initialization processing process mainly enables the wifi chip module to enter a state of monitoring wifi messages in the air, and comprises the following steps:

step S11: loading the drive of the wifi chip module;

step S14: setting working channels of all wifi interface network cards;

s2: and the data plane processing is mainly used for circularly processing the reception of the wifi message and analyzing wifi information from the message. It comprises the following steps:

step S21: establishing a socket for receiving messages for each wifi interface;

step S22: creating a thread, and receiving a message (namely packet capturing) on a socket;

step S23: the message contains a radio tap head which contains wifi information, and the information such as a transmission mode, a working speed, signal intensity and the like corresponding to the message can be analyzed from a radio tap protocol header;

step S24: according to the test requirements, filtering messages meeting the requirements by taking a working channel, a working mode, a working speed, a source mac address and the like as filtering conditions, and recording wifi information meeting the requirements;

step S25: storing the obtained wifi information into a database for later use;

s3: and the processing of the control plane is mainly used for dynamically changing message filtering conditions according to test requirements, switching monitoring channels and other control works, and providing a data access interface for a wifi test system host.

The invention also provides a method for controlling the wifi test process and summarizing and processing the test data. As shown in fig. 5, the wifi testing system host, which performs summary processing on the testing process control and the testing data, includes the following steps:

step 1: and (4) preparing a test. Before testing, the DUT needs to be connected with the router in advance and placed on a test bench, and then point testing is started;

step 2: and judging whether the automatic control of the DUT to enter a specified test mode concurrent packet is realized, wherein the specified test mode refers to setting which channel, which working mode and which working rate are fixedly used by the DUT for data communication. If the test system has realized the automatic control interface with DUT, go to step 4; if not, turning to step 3;

and 3, step 3: controlling the DUT to carry out data communication by other external modes according to the working channel, the working mode and the working speed required by the test, then continuing the test, and turning to the step 5;

and 4, step 4: automatically controlling the DUT to carry out data communication according to a working channel, a working mode and a working speed required by the test;

and 5: acquiring or inputting a mac address of the DUT (device under test) for filtering wifi message data;

and 6: acquiring or inputting a test channel, a working mode and a working speed of a DUT (device under test);

and 7: controlling all wifi signal monitoring units, and taking source mac, working mode, working speed and channel as packet capturing and filtering conditions;

and 8: acquiring data of all wifi signal monitoring units so as to obtain data of all probes;

and step 9: according to the spatial distribution of the probes, the probes are logically grouped, for example, all the probes are grouped into one group, such as probes No. 1 to 12 in FIG. 2, which represent omnidirectional comprehensive signals; all probes in the horizontal section are grouped, as probes 5 to 8 in fig. 2, representing the horizontal plane average signal; the upper horizontal cross-sections are grouped into groups, such as probes 1 through 4 in FIG. 2, representing the average signal at the top of the DUT; the lower horizontal cross-sections are grouped into sets, such as probes 9 through 12 in fig. 2, representing the average signal at the lower part of the DUT, etc. Then respectively calculating data such as average signal intensity, standard deviation and the like;

since the wifi signal may fluctuate or be interfered, when calculating the average value of the signal, according to the normal distribution characteristic of the signal, the mathematical means is used to filter out the signal data which is interfered too much or whose signal intensity is not reliable;

step 10: calculating each index according to the test standard, and judging whether each test item passes or not;

step 11: carrying out alarm display and archiving processing on the test result;

step 12: judging whether enough data volume is collected to automatically quit the test or manually quit the test, and if the test needs to be continuously repeated, turning to the step 8; otherwise, the test is finished.

In summary, compared with the prior art, the multi-probe monitoring device and the monitoring method thereof have the advantages that the multi-probe is adopted, wifi space signals of the DUT device can be monitored from all spatial directions, and the overall wifi performance of the device can be more comprehensively evaluated from only one direction compared with the prior art.

In the test, wifi communication of the DUT is not affected, and the DUT equipment can be still controlled in the test.

After grouping statistical analysis is carried out on the multiple probes, various indexes such as signal evaluation indexes of all cross sections of the space and horizontal antenna gain can be obtained, and the performance of wifi can be evaluated more comprehensively.

Finally, it should be noted that: although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, those skilled in the art can still make modifications to the technical solutions described in the foregoing embodiments, or make equivalent substitutions and improvements to part of the technical features of the foregoing embodiments, and any modifications, equivalent substitutions and improvements made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A multi-probe wifi testing method is characterized in that: the method specifically comprises the following steps:

s1, initialization processing:

step S11: loading the drive of the wifi chip module;

step S14: setting working channels of all wifi interface network cards;

s2, data plane processing:

step S21: establishing a socket for receiving messages for each wifi interface;

step S25: storing the obtained wifi information into a database for later use;

s42, judging whether the automatic control of the DUT to enter a specified test mode and transmitting a packet is realized;

step S43: testing the required working channel, working mode and working speed to carry out data communication, then continuing the test, and turning to the step S45;

step S45: acquiring or inputting a mac address of the DUT for filtering wifi message data;

step S49: according to the spatial distribution condition of the probes, the probes are logically grouped, and then data such as average signal intensity, standard deviation and the like are respectively calculated;

2. The multi-probe wifi testing method of claim 1, characterized in that: and the initialization processing of the step S1 is to enable the wifi chip module to enter a state of monitoring wifi messages in the air.

3. The multi-probe wifi testing method of claim 1, characterized in that: and the data plane processing of the step S1 is to circularly process the reception of the wifi message and analyze wifi information from the message.

4. A testing system of the multi-probe wifi testing method of any of claims 1-3, characterized by: the system comprises a plurality of probes, a plurality of wifi chip modules, a plurality of wifi signal monitoring units and a wifi testing system host;

the wifi chip module is connected with the wifi signal monitoring unit through a usb bus HUB; and the wifi signal monitoring unit is connected with the wifi test system host through an Ethernet local area network.

5. The testing system of the multi-probe wifi testing method of claim 4, characterized in that: the probe is a wifi antenna, is arranged on the test box and is used for receiving wifi physical electrical signals of the DUT from a plurality of directions;

the wifi chip module is connected with the probe and used for receiving the aerial physical wifi electric signal captured by the probe and converting the aerial physical wifi electric signal into a wifi data message for further analyzing wifi information in the subsequent process, and when the wifi chip module is selected, a chip supporting a monitor function needs to be selected;

the method comprises the following steps that a Wifi signal monitoring unit captures a Wifi data message through a Wifi chip module, and then basic special parameters of Wifi, such as the transmission signal intensity, the working channel, the working mode and the working speed corresponding to the Wifi message, are analyzed from the message and used as basic testing data;

the Wifi test system host is in loose coupling connection with the Wifi signal monitoring units through an Ethernet local area network, controls all the Wifi signal monitoring units, captures air messages of a designated working channel, a working mode, the working channel and a designated source mac address, collects all probe data, and then obtains a series of test indexes for generating test conclusions through operation.