Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P., 8000 Foothills Boulevard, Roseville, California

Transcription

1 v5.1.3 HP RF Planner v5.1.3 Release Notes HP RF Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P., 8000 Foothills Boulevard, Roseville, California Planner Release Notes V Product documentation is being enhanced continuously based on customer feedback. To obtain a latest copy of this document, visit

2 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION... 3 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS... 3 OPERATING SYSTEM: (32-BIT AND 64-BIT VERSIONS)... 3 DOT NET FRAMEWORK REQUIRED... 3 MEMORY REQUIREMENTS... 3 OTHER REQUIREMENTS... 3 NEW FEATURES... 3 ENHANCEMENTS TO WIZARD BASED WORKFLOW FOR WLAN PLANNING... 3 ENHANCEMENTS TO LINK SPEED VIEW... 3 CHANGES... 3 BUILD Power(mW) selection values extended for APs... 3 MSM430 APs... 3 BUILD Use English (US) regional settings... 4 DOWNLOADING RF PLANNER... 4 INSTALLING AND LAUNCHING RF PLANNER... 4 DOWNLOADING AND INSTALLING AN RF PLANNER LICENSE... 5 (OPTIONAL) MOVING FROM 3COM AIRPROTECT PLANNER TO HP RF PLANNER... 5 KNOWN ISSUES AND LIMITATIONS... 6 INSTALLATION/UPGRADE/LAUNCHING/CLOSING... 6 LICENSING... 6 LAYOUT DESIGNER... 6 CHANGING THE AP/SENSOR NAME IN AP/SENSOR REPOSITORY... 6 NETWORK PLANNER... 6 IMPORTING FROM AUTOCAD... 7 REPORT AND BILL OF MATERIAL (BOM)... 9 KNOWN ISSUES FOR NON-ENGLISH OPERATING SYSTEM... 9 Page 2 of 9

3 Introduction These Release Notes highlight the enhancements, major bug fixes, and some known issues in HP RF Planner version 5.1. It also contains information for software upgrades. System Requirements Operating System: (32-bit and 64-bit versions) Windows XP (Service Pack 2 and above). Windows Vista (Service Pack not required). Windows 7 (Service Pack not required). Dot Net Framework required Dot Net Framework 2.0 or higher. This is usually included automatically. Memory requirements Minimum: 512 MB. Recommended: 1 GB or more. Other requirements Need administrator privileges. New Features Enhancements to Wizard based workflow for WLAN Planning The WLAN planning Wizard now takes into account characteristics of typical clients (such as 11n capable Laptops or Smartphones) while planning for coverage with certain minimum link speed or certain capacity. In order to make this process easy for the end users, RF Planner provides pre-defined client types such as Laptops and Smartphones with 1x1 and 2x2 MIMO capabilities. Enhancements to link speed view RF Planner now provides end users an ability to see the link speeds that one would get from APs on the floor for chosen client types. The pre-defined client types such as Laptops and Smartphones with 1x1 and 2x2 MIMO capabilities can be chosen to see the link speeds that can be obtained from the APs placed on the floor in presence of chosen client type. Changes Build Power(mW) selection values extended for APs The selected Regulatory Domain for the Location Node may not support all the Power values of all the APs. Therefore, the Power values of all the access points have been extended to allow selection of lower values to facilitate planning. MSM430 APs Fixed an issue in which in some cases, MSM430 APs could not be added to a node map. Page 3 of 9

4 Build Use English (US) regional settings The numeric values were incorrectly fetched from the source files on French operating system. From this point forward, RF Planner will always use the US English regional settings. Downloading RF Planner HP RF Planner v5.1.3 Release Notes Download RF Planner from the HP software download site as instructed in the information provided with your purchase. Installing and Launching RF Planner The RF Planner installation package is to be installed as described here. And once installed, the software is to be launched in a similar manner as described here: For RF Planner and later, whenever RF Planner is launched, the operating system will automatically prompt you to choose the option that grants elevated privileges. Choose the elevated privileges option to proceed with the installation. RF Planner versions and earlier should be launched by right-clicking on the shortcut and selecting Run as administrator. Note: The RF Planner 5.1 installer will check if any previous version of RF Planner has been installed. If it finds any, then it will automatically upgrade the installed files and software. For new installations, until you have installed a license, the RF Planner License Activation/Update Page appears when you launch the software: When this page appears, take note of Host Name and the MAC Address as these items are required to download a license. You can leave this page open and return to it and install the license file once downloaded. Page 4 of 9

5 When upgrading to a newer software version, you will find the license page on the Help menu under Update License as follows: Downloading and Installing an RF Planner License Upon purchase of RF Planner, your will receive a software registration card. This card provides a registration number that is required to download a license file from the HP My Networking portal. Log in to the HP My Networking portal: 1. Under My Licenses, enter the Registration ID from your RF Planner Registration Card. 2. When prompted, provide the MAC address and Host Name of the computer on which you have installed RF Planner. 3. Note that the Host Name and MAC Address are displayed on the RF Planner launch page. 4. Upon submittal of your request, your license will show as Pending until your license key file becomes available. Once available, download your license key file to your computer. 5. Launch RF Planner (if it is not already running), and on the opening RF Planner License Activation/Update Page, fill in your name, address, and browse to and load the license key file. 6. Select Confirm Key to complete the license installation. 7. If this is a fresh install, RF Planner fully launches upon selecting Confirm Key. (Optional) Moving from 3Com AirProtect Planner to HP RF Planner Note: An existing and valid 3Com AirProtect Planner license key may be used to register this version of HP RF Planner. If you are an existing 3Com AirProtect Planner user, then you should do the following: 1. If you are not running 3Com AirProtect Planner version 5.0, you should first upgrade to 3Com AirProtect Planner If you have changed any global settings such as preferences / AP repository / Sensor Repository / Waterfall curves / Antenna repository / Radiation patterns etc. then you need to save these settings by using Export Settings menu under the Tools menu. Do not save this file in the install directory of 3Com AirProtect Planner. Remember the name of the folder where you have saved these settings. 3. Ensure that the license text file used to activate your 3Com AirProtect planner is also saved. Do not save this file in install directory of 3Com AirProtect Planner. 4. Make sure that all of your planner projects are saved in a separate folder and the files are not saved in the 3Com AirProtect planner s install directory. 5. Uninstall 3Com AirProtect Planner 5.0 and install HP RF Planner 5.0 version. 6. Apply the 3Com AirProtect Planner license key to activate HP RF Planner version If you had saved preferences in step 2 above, restore them using Import Settings menu option under the Tools menu. 8. Upgrade the HP RF Planner 5.0 to HP RF Planner 5.1 by installing the RF Planner v 5.1. Page 5 of 9

6 Known Issues and Limitations Installation/Upgrade/Launching/Closing Do not run multiple instances of RF Planner as this slows down the system. Licensing You cannot use the evaluation key once you have used any other key for the product. HP RF Planner v5.1.3 Release Notes Layout Designer 1. You cannot assign individual layout dimensions to a cross-floor location folder. All locations under a cross-floor location folder will have same dimensions. 2. Right clicking an object cancels multiple selections. Keep the control key pressed when you right click the object for the menu. 3. Layout Resizing: a. The objects on the layout will be distorted if the layout dimensions are changed, which causes the aspect ratio to be off. This distortion is prominent if the length and width of the layout are highly disproportionate. b. The polygon object is not considered for resizing. As a result, all the polygon objects are deleted from the layout. You need to redraw them once the resize is done. 4. You cannot resize Polygon (Hollow/Solid) objects. 5. If any object is given negative angle values, the object assumes zero angle. 6. The Paste functionality does not work if you delete the last pasted object or perform Undo after the paste operation. Changing the AP/Sensor name in AP/Sensor Repository 1. When a location node is opened that refers to the AP names not present in the AP repository, it will show a message box as below: 2. To open the location node, you have to select Yes in the above message box. Otherwise, the location node will not load. 3. The above behavior also applies when the location node refers to a Sensor name that is not present in Sensor Repository. Network Planner 1. If an AP type is deleted from the AP repository but it exists in an older version of RF Planner files, it will now be represented as the current default AP. 2. If the recalculation is terminated before completion, the calculation may be erroneous or incorrect. The Recalculation Needed message appears. Calculate again to get the correct predictions. 3. There is lag of -25 dbm signal near the AP. This is due to the antenna gain and higher loss near the AP. 4. Object thickness: The RF calculations will not take into account the thickness of the objects placed on the floor map. A standard attenuation based on typical thickness has been assumed in RF Planner v If you have multiple floor sites with a large number of floors, RF Planner may slow down due to computation overload. 6. If you change the layout image with Lock Aspect Ratio option ON, you may get a warning message in Location Properties. 7. If a wall edge is in the middle of the cell, the cell on the edge will have higher power and next cell will have attenuated power. This is because RF Planner divides the layout in cells and each cell can have only one value. Here the cell on the border is on the object and is considered as part of the object. RF Planner does not attenuate power at the first edge or starting edge of an object because the width of the object at the beginning of a wall is not known. Page 6 of 9

7 8. During calculation, if you move the Recalculation needed progress bar, the progress bar erases the background image and paints it white. It remains in this state while the calculation is in progress. Once the calculation is completed, it will show the original image with coverage. 9. In the AP Redundancy view, the redundancy is shown for the total number of radios available for the devices placed on the floor map, but for the Sensor Redundancy View, the redundancy is shown for the number of devices placed on the floor map. For example, if there are two APs having two radios each then the redundancy is shown for four radios; while if there are two Sensors having two radios each then the redundancy for Sensors is shown for two devices only. For a redundancy of one, we consider either one radio/device based on whether it is an AP or Sensor. For a redundancy of two, we consider two radios/devices and so on. 10. While creating a new location, if you use an AutoCAD file, RF Planner ignores all the redundant objects while importing the AutoCAD file. All objects within one foot distance from already imported object are ignored. This helps manage the number of obstacles on the floor without compromising the planning outcome. Managing the number of obstacles on the floor also helps manage the performance of RF Planner. 11. During AutoCAD import, if you choose a few layers and import and at a later point of time would like to add few more layers to the current layout, you cannot do this. You need to go through the new location creation procedure once again and re-import the AutoCAD file with the required set of layers. Importing from AutoCAD The purpose and scope of AutoCAD drawing is much wider than modeling only the Wifi Obstacles on the floor. Therefore, the level of details in AutoCAD drawings is more than what is needed for Wifi planning. For example, a drawing can contain multiple views of certain floor objects in the same layer where floor plan is drawn, or there could be text-based instructions along with the floor plan, etc. These practices result in objects outside the actual floor boundary, which contribute to RF Planner treating the entire drawing extent as the floor dimension, which can be much larger than the actual floor. There is a need to pre-process the AutoCAD drawings to make them suitable for import in RF Planner. This pre-processing needs to focus on layers which contain Wifi obstacles. Here is a brief description of the steps to be executed in AutoCAD software, to get the drawing into a form that can be imported in RF Planner. Before any of these steps are executed, it is important to identify the layers in AutoCAD drawing which contain WiFi obstacles. Typically these are internal walls, external walls, and columns. Step 1: Exploding the block references in layers that contain WiFi obstacles. The current release of HP RF Planner does not explode block references during import of AutoCAD drawing. If the drawing uses blocks in the layers containing WiFi obstacles, then these block references need to be EXPLODED so that the elementary objects such as lines, polylines, etc. become directly available to RF Planner. Doing this block explosion process for all layers can be time consuming depending on the number of layers, therefore doing it for the layers which have objects representing WiFi obstacles is more efficient. The steps to get the blocks exploded in AutoCAD are as follows: QSELECT (Quick Select) of all block references and EXPLODE explodes the blocks. AutoCAD drawings can nested block references where top-level block references refer to block references till the leaf level reference referring to a block. In order to explode these nested block references, QSELECT and EXPLODE needs to be repeated until you get 0 block references in that layer. Here is an example of the command history for one of the layers which shows 47 block references at top level are exploded to get 47 block references again because all these 47 referred to block references. These next level block references were again selected and exploded. Since these were referring to blocks containing elementary objects, the 3rd qselect for block references returns 0 block references. _qselect 47 item(s) selected. _explode 47 found Page 7 of 9

8 _qselect 47 item(s) selected. _explode 47 found _qselect 0 item(s) selected. HP RF Planner v5.1.3 Release Notes Similar steps may be required for External References as well, because they too come as block references in main drawing. Step 2: Freezing of certain layers to get the correct dimensions of floor map. In many drawings, there are layers in the drawing which have objects outside the actual floor boundaries. The purpose of these layers is to add descriptions or different views (such as elevation view of stair cases etc.) in the drawing. But RF Planner imports all objects in a layer and treats them as WiFi obstacles on the floor. If there are layers which contain such objects which are not WiFi objects on the floor but serve the purpose of providing additional information only, and these objects are drawn outside the floor object boundary, then these layers cause the extent of the drawing to be much larger than the actual floor size. In order to ensure that RF Planner gets the correct extents of the floor for determining the dimensions, it is required to freeze layers that contain objects outside the floor boundaries. Use Layer Properties manager in AutoCAD to freeze the unwanted layers. If certain layers that have the WiFi Obstacles, also have other objects outside floor boundary, then these objects outside floor boundary will need to be deleted from the AutoCAD drawing to avoid wrong determination of floor size. Sometimes, a single layer shows plans of multiple floors. In these cases different drawings need to be created for different floors so that the floor plans can be successfully imported in RF Planner. Step 3: Turn only the required layers ON. As Step 2 has already determined which layers contain the objects that represent the WiFi obstacles during the block reference explosion step, keep only those layers ON and turn OFF all other layers. This helps the users of RF Planner to be able to import the selected layers and not think of other layers from WiFi planning perspective. Only specifying material during import makes it easier for RF Planner users. Step 4: Co-ordinate system change. If the drawings have user coordinate systems, it is better to use that as it results in actual co-ordinates changing to smaller value, which are closer to the actual dimensions. Step 5: Making co-ordinate axis horizontal and vertical. If the drawings have tilted co-ordinate axis, AutoCAD shows the floor map without the tilt by aligning the x and y axis with the display horizontal and vertical. This results in users expecting the floor map to be seen in the same orientation after the import. Since RF Planner s coordinate axis have fixed directions (aligned with edges of display), Importing such plans without co-ordinate axis transformation in AutoCAD has two outcomes: 1. The plan seen in RF Planner is tilted, and 2. This also results in extents of the drawing to be larger than the actual floor dimensions. In order to get the floor map imported as it is seen in AutoCAD, it is important to transform the coordinate axis in AutoCAD so that they are aligned to the edges of display followed by rotation of the floor map. This is accomplished by View -> 3D View -> Plan View command in AutoCAD. Now the axis become vertical, but the floor map is seen to be tilted. Select the entire floor map and rotate it to align it with the co-ordinate axis. Step 6: Rotation of the tilted floor map. Page 8 of 9

9 Selecting a line at the bottom of the map and viewing its properties gives the angle of the current drawing. Use this to determine the additional angle by which the floor map should be rotated so that it is aligned with the display horizontal and vertical. Select all objects using the menu option and rotate the entire selection by the angle determined above to make the bottom edge horizontal. Report and Bill of Material (BOM) 1. In the WLAN planning report, the headings, images, and text may not be on the same page depending upon the size of the image and the space available on the page. Use the formatting and page setup options of a word processing program such as Microsoft Word to re-arrange the layout of the WLAN planning report. 2. In the planning report, the values in the Bar Charts may not be displayed properly. Modify the appearance and size of the chart in the resulting word processing document. 3. When input image size is small, device icons appear larger in reports and the BOM. Probability of using a very small image is very less. 4. BOM and WLAN Planning report by default does not open in print preview mode. Known Issues for Non-English Operating System 1. There may be some unpredictable problems due the occurrences of Non-English characters in the file name. 2. When running on Japanese OS, the Settings text of Calculation Settings will not be visible. Page 9 of 9