Neighboring AP discovery and information exchange methods in Plug-and-Play WLAN system

To overcome the problem of existing neighboring access point (AP) discovery methods in WLAN, for example they can not provide the accurate neighboring APs information needed for the Plug-and-Play (PnP) of multi-mode APs, three kinds of neighboring AP discovery and information exchange methods are proposed.Using these three neighboring AP discovery methods, passive discovery method, active discovery method and station assistant discovery method, the multi-mode AP can discover all neighboring APs and obtain needed information.We further propose two whole process flows, which combine three discovery methods in different manner, to achieve different goals.One process flow is to discover the neighboring AP as fast as possible, called fast discovery process flow.The other is to discover the neighboring AP with minimal interference to neighboring APs, called the minimal interference process flow.The validity and accuracy of the method is confirmed by the simulation.