Mobile equipment in industry, whether for logistics (AGVs, AMRs, stacker cranes, etc.) or production (bridge cranes, conveyors, etc.), requires reliable and continuous data transmission throughout all phases of movement.
In order to maintain network connectivity when a WiFi client product is installed in moving equipment or vehicles, the roaming function must be implemented in the on-board router.
By default, roaming mode is reactive: it is triggered when the client can no longer communicate with its access point. When the number of failures is too high, the client disconnects from its current access point and starts looking for a new one (scan mode). The roaming process is slow (you have to wait for the scan to finish) and data cannot be transmitted during this time. Communication is therefore interrupted during the scan.
To solve this problem, ACKSYS has developed a proactive roaming mode to minimize the disconnection phase and make roaming transparent to the application.
Proactive roaming means that the WiFi client device searches, selects and switches to another access point before the signal level is so low that many errors can occur. By enabling proactive mode and selecting the appropriate parameters (threshold settings), the switch from one access point to another will be made before the data rate is affected, and the re-association process will be quick (<30ms) if the new access point is within sufficient radio range. As a result, little or no data will be lost.
These powerful ACKSYS roaming algorithms are active on the client side and independent of the WiFi infrastructure in place (other manufacturers such as Cisco or HPE Aruba, for example).
Note : to meet the needs of certain applications for which packet loss during handover is highly critical, ACKSYS has developed another particular roaming mode, called « Connect Before Break », which makes it possible to drastically reduce the packet loss rate, and this even with very high data throughput. CBB has been designed for dual-radio routers.
