SDWCM: A Software-Defined Wi-Fi Architecture For Collaborative Management

The intensive deployment of access points (APs) and the introduction of Wi-Fi 7 multi-AP joint transmission technology bring new challenges and requirements to Wi-Fi network architecture. Based on the analysis of the limitations of traditional Wi-Fi network architecture, we propose a Software-Defined Wi-Fi Architecture for Collaborative Management (SDWCM), which adopts the control mechanism of centralized and coordinated distributed coexistence and the principle of partial decoupling between control functions and the data plane. We make a theoretical analysis and demonstrate the necessity of collaborative management of wired and wireless network resources in Wi-Fi 7 multi-AP joint transmission scenario. SDWCM supports the collaborative management and global optimization of wired and wireless network resources. Based on ns-3 and OFSwitch13, we implement SDWCM and evaluate the performance of the system and upper-layer applications. The evaluation results show that SDWCM can provide high-performance guarantees for upper-layer management applications. SDWCM is oriented to the next-generation Wi-Fi 7 technology and can be used as the deployment platform for the design and implementation of network management algorithms.