Introduction

Wirepas Network Tool ("WNT") is a highly scalable tool for monitoring & analyzing Wirepas Mesh network operation. It provides visibility of network KPIs, individual node behavior and visualization of the logical topology of a Wirepas Mesh network. It supports the import of floor plans to allow for the visualization of the physical network topology. It is possible to use the WNT client to initialize the Wirepas Positioning Engine ("WPE") with the known location of anchor nodes. Additionally, certain network parameters can be remotely managed from the WNT client. WNT also support updating node stack and application firmware. 

Figure 1 - WNT full stack overview

WNT works by gathering the diagnostics data from the network (diagnostics packets from the node devices) and relaying that information via a gateway device to a backend server that collects and analyzes the information.
 The information can then be visualized in a WNT client application running on the user's personal computer. This document is intended to provide a getting started guide for users of the WNT client application.

Audience

The intended audience for this document are technically aware operators or developers of Wirepas Mesh powered networks, who wish to use the WNT client to understand a Wirepas Mesh network's behavior. 

Pre-requisites

There are several technical and know-how pre-requisites for the successful use of the WNT client. These include:

1. A provisioned WNT backend. This may be hosted on a cloud service, an on-premise data center or even a local server installation.
2. A functioning Wirepas Mesh network including a gateway correctly configured to send data to the running instance of the WNT backend.
3. The correct server details and credentials to allow the WNT client to connect to the WNT backend. NOTE: These will be provided by Wirepas in the case the backend instance is established by Wirepas on the customer's behalf.
4. A Windows 10 based PC with enough free disk and RAM to install and execute the application. The PC should be equipped with at least 2GB RAM, 1 GHz< CPU frequency and 20GB of free disk space.
5. Some familiarity with Wirepas Mesh operation, radio frequency communication and networking terminology.
6. The WNT client must be able to communicate with the WNT backend over TCP/IP using ports 8811, 8812, 8813 and 8886. Ensure that any firewalls between the WNT client machine and backend instance are correctly configured to pass traffic on those ports.

Getting Started

The WNT client is provided as a self-extracting installer binary file.

Client Installation

Copy the self-extracting installer file to the local storage of the PC.
 Once copied, launching the installer application will install the application to the PC local disk and make it ready for use. If an older version is already installed, then you will be automatically notified that the previous version will be removed. Follow the instructions on screen to uninstall the old version. When the old version is uninstalled:

Figure 2 - Installation dialog

Clicking through the subsequent dialogues including license agreement and installation location will result in successful installation:
Clicking finish with the "Run Wirepas Network Tool…" checkbox selected will launch the application.
Note: multiple versions of the application can be used by installing them to different locations.

Configuring the client

When the client is run for the first-time after installation, you will be prompted to provide the login server address to complete. Using the information provided to you by the server administrator input the details into the server configuration dialog. The URL will be of the form:
 wss://hostname.companyname.com:8813

Figure 3 – WNT 3.0 has updated details dialog

If you have different services running on different hosts, uncheck the checkbox and remember to change server addresses according to your needs from general settings (see Figure 5).
In cases you are connecting to different WNT backends using the same WNT Client: consider adding a shortcut for a WNT Client. See Section “Configuring WNT” .

Setting Credentials

WNT supports two user roles. An administrative user and an operator user. The administrative user has more capabilities than an operator. This role should be used with caution as important network parameters can be changed with administrative privileges that may result in the network behavior being modified. Many of the functions described in section 10 are only available to administrative users. As a main rule operator user cannot make any changes to the WNT application data, or to the node parameters.
 Input the supplied username and password into the following dialog:

Figure 4 - Credentials input dialog 

 If the credentials are accepted, then you will be logged into the system with the appropriate administrator or operator privileges.

Server Settings

Make sure to navigate to the Settings View -> General Settings (see Section "Settings View Screen" for details) and that the values in the server address fields match those supplied to you by the person or organization responsible for maintaining the WNT backend. The format of the server addresses is as shown in Figure 5. 

Figure 5 - Server input dialog

Once the server settings are done and saved, the WNT client will reboot and start again with the view shown in Section "Getting Started".

Initial Network Setup

When the WNT client is launched for the first time there is no data displayed in any view, as nodes are not authorized yet. In this case the user will see a yellow banner on top of the screen, which will guide the user to authorize the nodes (step 3).

Figure 6 - WNT screen when no nodes are approved, see yellow banner text

 To begin monitoring a Wirepas Mesh network the following initialization steps should be performed. These actions must be performed by a user with administrative privileges:

1. In the Settings -> Networks view, associate the network ID as set in the network nodes (expressed in decimal format) with a descriptive network name. From WNT v1.4 and onwards a network is automatically created, and this step is not required.
2. Optionally, in the Settings -> Building Floor plans view, add a floor plan by importing a bitmap image of the floor plan in one of the following formats: PNG or JPG.
3. Authorize the nodes in the Settings -> Node Management view by dragging them from the list on to the map.
4. Select the networks to visualize gathered data from using the network selector drop down on the Overview Screen.

Clearing all filters

WNT Client supports extensive filtering functionality described in section . A common cause of observing no online nodes is that a filter is enabled. To ensure all nodes are visible ensure that all filters are removed by following the instructions in Section "Filtering Views".

Figure 7 - Filter bars (inside the red circle)

Overview Screen

When successfully logged in and all the devices in the network are approved in node management, the following screen (example) is displayed:

Figure 8 - Overview screen

 This screen is the central navigation point for the WNT client. It provides:

1. The connection status to the WNT backend and network selector
2. A number of widgets that can be explored, re-arranged and re-sized providing information on the monitored networks
3. A navigation bar to move through different views

Connection Status Icon & Network Selection

Connection Status

At the top left of the main screen you will find a connection status icon that is also a drop-down menu. The color of the icon indicates the connection state of the client to the backend as follows:

It is normal when starting the client to see an amber icon prior to green being displayed whilst the initial data is being loaded from the backend.

 Network Selection

The Connection Status also includes a drop-down list of available networks sending data to the WNT backend that the client is connected to. Clicking on the drop down will result in a list of networks being displayed:

Figure 9 - Available network selector dialog

From this list the networks for which data is visualized in the client can be selected. Note that there is an "ALL" option, but be aware that some configuration options are not possible when the "ALL" option is selected. Each of the networks can be named, see Section "Settings View Screen".

Dashboard Widgets

The dashboard widgets provide at-a-glance information about the network(s) previously selected from the "Network Selection" drop down list. All widgets include a date/time stamp of the time when the data was calculated. The widgets can be re-arranged, re-sized or maximized.
For all graph-based widgets, hovering the mouse pointer over the graph will display the numerical values associated with that entry.
 Currently available dashboard widgets are:

Using the Navigation bar

To access different functionalities in the WNT client a navigation bar is provided on the left-hand side of the screen. At any time, the icons can be selected, which will change the information presented:

Creating filters

Left clicking on any value (number or graph) in a widget where the mouse pointer changes to a hand icon allows a filter to be created as described in Section “Filtering Views”.

Help

You can access help in every page in WNT. Help icon is found on the right hand side of each page.

Nodes View Screen

The nodes view provides a sortable list of nodes and associated information:

Figure 10 - Nodes View list screen

Rows in red indicate that the node is offline, and the backend has not received data in the last 3 diagnostics intervals. Yellow rows mean that node status is uncertain, and the backend has not received data for one diagnostics interval time period. Rows in black are currently online and reporting their data.
Double clicking a row will open the Node Details screen (see Section “Nodes View Screen”).
 The column on which data is sorted can be selected by clicking on a column heading. Click a second time on the column heading inverts the sorting criteria. For example, clicking once on the "battery voltage" column will sort smallest to largest. Clicking again will sort largest to smallest.

Node Details Screen

The node details screen can be activated from Node View list screen (by double clicking a node in the list) but also from a few other screens, including the topology screen. It allows for the details an individual node to be displayed and graphed over time.

Figure 11 - Node details screen

For a full description of the meaning of all attributes, refer to the latest version of the Diagnostics Reference Manual [1] and the appropriate radio profile appendix, for example [2] for 2.4GHz radio operation.

Information tab

The information tab displays many diagnostic parameters collected from nodes in the network. It also allows a number of operations to be performed on the selected node:

It is possible to copy node information data from information tab using the context menu.
 Clicking on an attribute name selects it for graphing. Multiple attributes may be selected. For example, in the figure below, the uplink delay for normal and high priority traffic is being graphed as a time series.

Figure 12 - Node details information tab

 The time window for graphing can be changed using the buttons at the top right of the screen:

Figure 13 - Node details zoom level selector

 Zooming into the graph is achieved by right-click dragging to highlight the time period of interest. Zoom levels can be reset from the buttons described above.

Boots tab

The boots tab displays the boot count and reasons for boot. The data can be exported into an XML file and sent to Wirepas contact person for inspection if needed.

Neighborhood tab

The neighborhood tab shows the previous hop and next hop neighbors and the sink of the selected node, using the same legends as the main Topology Screen. The selected node for the Node Details can be selected by double clicking the node graphics. Neighbors signal RSSI and radio power is based on next hop information. Therefore, the formula about the values we show on neighboring nodes is complicated. Next hop nodes from the selected node show the values from the source. Previous hop nodes from the selected node show the information from the target. You can see this value also on other interactive views by hovering the node.

Creating a filter

Right clicking on a row (or a number or rows selected with a shift click operation) will display a context sensitive menu with the following options:

• Copy information the clipboard
• Filter out all other nodes
• Filter out nodes
• Remove approval
• Delete

Selecting the filter options will result in the creation of a new filter in the filter bar. 

Map View Screen

If a building floor plan has been uploaded to the backend (see Settings section below) and nodes positioned appropriately, then a world map will be displayed with the building floor plans and nodes rendered in the correct locations. The map is interactive and can be used with mouse or keyboard arrow keys and Page Up/Down.

Figure 14 - Map View

On the map are rendered icons representing the location of buildings with floor plans and networks that have been placed. Positions where nodes are placed, are rendered as heatmap tiles when zoom level is accurate enough. On the most accurate level the node icons appear on the map replacing the heatmap tiles.

Icons surrounding the map, whether in world or building mode, allow for different operations to be performed:

Any time a node icon is visible on the map view, double-clicking will take you to the Node Details screen (see Section “Nodes View Screen” for further details of node details screen functionality).
 When in map view, the network operation is also showed as heat map, showing the green/yellow/red tiles in the map. The more detail heat map can be seen when zooming closely to the area in interest.

Figure 15 - Heat map in map view 

Creating a filter

Right click and drag on the map or a floorplan to select the nodes in that geographical area:

Figure 16 - Map filter area selection

 Selecting the "Filter Area" option will result in a new filter being created for those nodes. The result of this operation will be displayed as a new filter present in the bar at the top of the screen, for example:

Figure 17 - Map filter coordinates display

Building Floor Plan View

On the map view, clicking on a building icon:
 Will result in a floor plan with node locations being displayed. The currently selected building and floor is displayed at the top of the screen. It is possible to select alternative building or floors to be displayed from the drop down menus visible when left clicking on the currently displayed building name:

Figure 18 - Building and floor selector

Selecting the "World" option from the drop down will return to the map view.
To setup buildings and floorplans use the tools in Settings->Building Floor plans screen. Further instructions are available in Section “Settings View Screen”.

Topology View Screen

The topology screen visualizes the logical routing topology of the network at the time the diagnostics data is collected. Firstly, the sinks associated with the selected networks can be chosen. This is done using the checkboxes or "select all" / "deselect all" buttons:

Figure 19 - Topology View, sink chooser

 Having selected one or more sinks, there are then two views available. In both cases node role, status and channel reliability can be seen at a glance:

 The nodes and icons are color coded as follows:

• Green: A message has been successfully received from the node during the current diagnostic interval period.
• Yellow: No messages have been received from this node during the preceding one or two diagnostic interval periods.
• Red: No messages have been received from this node for more than two diagnostic interval periods.
• Blue: Planning node. This node is not a real physical node in the network but used just for planning. It only has metadata.

Double-clicking on a node displays the Node Details screen (see Section “Nodes View Screen” for further details).
 Clicking the "Set auto-update on" button ensures that the view is updated as new diagnostics data is received by the backend from the selected network(s).

Show organic

Clicking the "Show organic" button will render the logical topology thus:

Figure 20 - Organic topology view

 This is useful to understand the current routing connections between nodes and the sink.

Show hierarchy

Clicking the "Show hierarchy" button results in the network topology being displayed thus:

Figure 21 - Hierarchy topology view

 This is useful to quickly visualize the maximum number of hops currently in the network. In this example the network is a maximum of two hops deep.

Comparison View Screen

The comparison view screen allows the selected attributes of any number of nodes to be compared via a graph. First the nodes to be compared are selected by clicking the node number. A checkmark will appear next to selected nodes. Then the diagnostics data to be compared is selected by clicking on the short description. Multiple nodes and values may be selected for comparison. A graph will be plotted with the selected nodes and diagnostic parameters. See Figure 22 - Two node comparison of channel reliability for details.
 It is possible to:

• Pan the graph by dragging while left mouse button is pressed
• Zoom the time range from mouse wheel
• Select a time span for the graph using the buttons at the top right of the screen
• Reset the zoom level
• Zoom into the graph by right clicking and dragging to select the time range to highlight

Hovering the mouse pointer over a:

• Node Diagnostic type will display a short tool tip describing the attribute.
• Data point will display the numerical value and time stamp.

Figure 22 - Two node comparison of channel reliability 

Settings View Screen

All WNT tool configuration topics are managed from the settings view screen. There are several sub-sections under the main Settings View Screen. The sub-sections are described below.

General Settings

Various functionality may be accessed from the General Settings screen.

Figure 23 - Server address settings dialog with examples 

This includes:

1. Changing the server addresses for various services offered from the backend to the client. See Section “Gettings Started” for further details on initial setup. These details should be provided to you by the person or organization responsible for establishing the WNT backend.
2. Checking connection status between the client and various server backends.
3. Setting the measurement system used to input data on building floorplans.
4. Logging out of the current session. NOTE: This will terminate the WNT client and user credentials must be inputted on restart.
5. Automatically resetting the widget positions in the overview page

System Clocks

This page is for keeping your WNT client, WNT backend and gateways in sync. You should always keep the time difference between components at a maximum of 3 minutes. Otherwise some WNT features will not function as expected.
Query Clocks fetches the date time from your WNT backend and gateways. You can see the timestamp and time difference between the WNT client, WNT backend and gateways.
 You should keep your WNT backend and gateways connected to Network time protocol service.

Node Management

Unauthorized nodes appear in the list to the left of the screen. Drag and drop these onto the map view to authorize the nodes. Only authorized nodes are displayed in the WNT client screens. Nodes can be placed on the imported floor plan. Select the correct building from the dropdown at the top right of the screen:
At any point you can give your node a name and description to help you keep track of your nodes.RSSI offset text field is related to WPE, which is described in Section “Positioning Engine”.
Note: you can configure your WNT views to e.g. show node name in map view, nodes list or topology. See more details in Configuring WNT UI in Section “Configuring WNT”.
There is also a possibility to add Planning nodes. These nodes are meant for planning and they are not real ones. One can however for example put an anchor installation map beforehand. If the node ids and network ids are put to match the real ones, the planning node will turn into real one in WNT as soon as the real node is connected to network. Planning nodes can be added by clicking the Drag to add node or by dragging directly to the map.
 User can also set node name and description in this view.

Node Configuration

It is possible to change attributes of individual nodes or the network from this screen. It is only available to administrative users. Configuration changes should be made with caution as setting incorrect values may result in the Wirepas Mesh network ceasing to function correctly.
Broadcast tab affects the whole network whereas Unicast tab affects selected nodes. The workflow is similar in both tabs:
To change an attribute first highlight the attribute to change in the "Available attributes" selection list:
 Select the "Add >>" button which will result in the highlighted attribute being added to the "Selected Attribute" list. A new attribute value can be inputted in the text box:

Figure 24 – Broadcast tab with available commands

 Clicking continue will move to the Process tab. No changes to the network or node are made at this point.

Broadcast attributes

Broadcast attributes are those affecting the entire network. It is currently possible to change the following network wide attributes:

• Network address
• Network channel
• Cipher Key
• Authentication Key
• Channel Map (not shown anymore when Wirepas Mesh firmware is 4.0.50 or newer)

Unicast attributes

Unicast attributes are those affecting selected node(s) in a network. It is currently possible to change the following single node attributes:
 Note: Default values are not the node current values.

• Node address
• Node role

Process Tab

Figure 25 - Node configuration process tab

The page shows overall information about the affected nodes and the attributes to be written to nodes.
Start configuration sends the configuration message to nodes in the network and checks responses from the nodes. Configure does not yet send the configuration message with the activation time, but it is more to make sure that the communication works with the nodes.
After the configuration responses have been received from the wanted nodes, the user can set an activation wait time, which indicates how long the nodes will until they activate the given command(s). The time taken depends on network complexity and approximation can be taken from the time it took to get the configuration done. It can vary from 4 minutes to hours. You can also check which nodes got your configuration command from the table in Figure 26.

Figure 26 - Activation ongoing

Start activation will send the activation message to the nodes which will take the command(s) into use after activation time and reboot.
Cancel will cancel the ongoing activation or configuration. The result will depend on the time when the cancel command was executed.
The Process page will update information while Configure/Activation/Cancel/Update Metadata/Reboot requests are being executed. The results are shown on the grid in the middle of the page.
Update Metadata will update the node state in Wirepas Network Tool. It is a good practice to do this after activation.
Finish will close the Process page.
 It is mandatory to wait for responses from the nodes before moving to the next step as command propagation in the mesh network cannot be guaranteed. Move only to next step without getting all responses if you know why it has happened and how to fix the situation later.

Node Update (firmware)

From WNT 2.0 onwards WNT Client supports over the air update process (OTAP) to update the WM stack and/or application firmware to the node devices. This means in short that the node device WM stack firmware or just the application firmware can be updated without manually flashing the device.
It is worth noting that this operation is for advanced users only. Wirepas recommends to practice OTAP with small networks that can be easily flashed manually.
Running OTAP on live production networks will cause at least some downtime for the whole network even if everything would go as planned. In the worst case, where incorrectly configured scratchpad is sent to network, the end result might be a need to manually re-flash all the nodes in the network.
Updating nodes should be made with caution and following strictly the guidelines described in following sections.
See more information about OTAP process in [3] and [4].

Configuration

To query the current network scratchpad information, you can select Run once or Start continuous. These buttons request scratchpad information from the current network.
 Fetching the information can take tens of minutes. Note that querying continuously prevents you from doing node configurations while continuous query is running.

Figure 27 - Node update: Query response 

Before doing the OTAP to the network you can either Browse the OTAP-image or directly write the path for the OTAP image and press Load. You will see the details of the loaded image under the Scratchpad File section.
You should check that the wanted nodes' firmware and application area id match the loaded OTAP files firmware and application ids (see Figure 28). When everything looks good, pressing Continue will proceed to the Process page. Nothing is sent to the network yet at this stage.

Figure 28 - Check App and FW area ids

Process

In this phase the user is able to start sending scratchpad to the Wirepas Mesh network where it will spread to the nodes.
Before starting the OTAP process, please double check that all the details are correct, and the correct nodes are going to be updated. You can see the affected nodes from the Will be updated column in Figure 29.
Update sink(s) only checkbox applies the update to only sinks in this network.
By clicking Start scratchpad loading the OTAP image starts to spread to the network. You can follow the process of nodes that have received the scratchpad from the counter. Fetching the data can take tens of minutes, even hours depending on the network size. You can follow the process from Loaded X/Y below the Loading animation. In this case the Loaded won't reach 6/6 since one of the nodes is offline. 

Figure 29 - Scratchpad loading into network 

When all targeted nodes have received the scratchpad, you can start the activation process. Estimating the activation time is difficult. Some estimate can be made from running the query and seeing how long it takes to get report from all targeted nodes. Starting activation means that the nodes that will get a new scratchpad will reboot and take the scratchpad into use at a time, which is X minutes after the pressing of the Start Activation button, where X is the amount of Activation Delay in minutes. 

When the activation time has elapsed the process page moves to Status phase, where scratchpad status is queried again from the nodes. This phase is used to see that all the wanted nodes were updated.

Note: the delay should not be shorter than 4 minutes and it should be long enough for the nodes at the edges of the network to also receive it. 

Note: you cannot Finish the process while Activation phase is ongoing. Finish button is only enabled after activation time has triggered and nodes are taking the new scratchpad into use. 

Note: it is mandatory to wait for scratchpad loading and activation responses from the nodes before moving to the next step as without this the nodes might not get the scratchpad or activation command. 

Note: when updating sinks only, the activation delay will be set automatically to zero minutes and process will move immediately to Status phase. 

Figure 30 – Activation on going. Activation delay set to 10 minutes, since spreading the scratchpad took less than 10 minutes 

Figure 31 - OTAP finishing waiting for Activation messages 

User Management

This screen displays the currently registered users in the system and their roles. It is also possible to add/delete and change a user's credentials and role:

Figure 32 - User management dialog

Building Floor plans

The building floor plan settings screen allows existing floor plans to be managed and new floor plans to be added:
 First a building must be added by clicking the add building button. This will create a new building named "NEW BUILDING". This can then be renamed appropriately. Multiple floors are supported per building. Then the floor plan graphic can be imported by drag and drop or file upload.

Figure 33 - Building Floor plan management dialog

 Clicking on the imported floor plan opens the floor plan settings dialog, where the anchor points can be selected by dragging the A, B, C and D markers to the correct location and then inputting the latitude, longitude and height of each point. The expected format is WGS84 coordinates:

Figure 34 - Building Floorplan anchor point selector

 It is mandatory that a distance between two known points, 1 and 2 is inputted to allow for positioning calculations if required. Failure to provide this will result in node areas and heat maps being incorrectly displayed in the world map.

Areas tab (WPE only)

It is possible to create areas inside the floor plans, but this information is only used when Wirepas Positioning Engine is in use.
To define an area, select the "add area" button at the top right corner of the screen:
Then type a friendly name in the "AREA NAME" textbox. Left click on the floorplan at the location of the first vertex of the polygon representing the area. Continue adding vertices by left clicking until the desired area is enclosed. Finish the polygon by right-clicking. To delete a vertex, hover the mouse-pointer over it and press the delete button on the keyboard. Make sure to click the green save button to commit the area.

Figure 35 - Area selection in building floorplan

Clicking save will commit the data and then the floorplan will be visible in the building view parts of the WNT UI. Failure to set the coordinates will mean that the building name is displayed in red and is not visible in other parts of the UI.
After defining areas WPE will do a calculation to determine if a moving tag is positioned inside the area. If that is the case it will be visible in the node information page Map Area(s) column, See Figure 10 - Nodes View list screen.
 

Networks

The Network settings screen displays the currently defined networks and allows for new networks to be added and existing ones to be deleted. The association between a network ID and a friendly network name can be defined when the network is defined:

Figure 36 - Network management dialog

 This page contains also various network-wide parameters to be set. Its primary use currently is to configure the interval (in seconds) in which the network reports its diagnostics data to the WNT backend. When the diagnostics interval and the application data are applied, the values from the sink are shown in the list above. This list also contains an error, if one happened. Also, all nodes can be deleted from the network in the backend. Please note that nodes come back if they send data after the deletion.

Position Engine

Position engine page shows the status of Wirepas Positioning Engine if it exists in the backend. It shows the state of the engine, version number and when the last status update was received.
 If the status text appears as red, it means that Positioning Engine is not operating. Contact your service support if the positioning engine should be on.

Figure 37 - Position engine status

Import

The Import settings screens allows for the bulk import of node data to the world map via file upload. The data in the file must be correctly formatted XML format.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config version="1.0">
<nodes>
<node networkid="10000" nodeid="1" latitude="10.0001" longitude="10.0001" altitude="0" approved="true" />
<node networkid="10000" nodeid="2" latitude="10.1002" longitude="10.0001" altitude="0" approved="true" />
</nodes>
</config>
 Network and node ids are in decimal notation, and latitude and longitude in WGS84 format. At the moment altitude/height data is not used but must be defined for the nodes.

About

The about settings screen displays copyright information and licensing information relating to the WNT client. 

Positioning Engine

This section is relevant only if you have WPE (positioning engine) running on the backend. This requires separate license.
The WPE services allow you to enhance your services with location data based on measurements provided by a Wirepas Mesh (WM) network properly configured for a positioning use case.
Checking current status of your position engine is described in Settings Section “Settings View Screen”.

Adding Anchor nodes to map view

Anchor nodes are shown with the following icon when dragged into the floor plan.
 The anchor nodes should be positioned carefully to reflect their real-world position otherwise the WPE calculated position of mobile assets will not be accurate.

Positioning mode in the map view

It is possible to select positioning mode from the map view by selecting this option from the drop down at the top right of the screen:

Figure 38 - Positioning mode selector

This shows a simplified view of the building floorplan that allows the position of anchor nodes and mobile assets to be more easily seen. Anchor nodes are fixed in the real world and have a defined position on the floor plan. Mobile assets can be moved in the physical world, and if the WNT backend is connected to a WPE then the mobile assets will move automatically on the floorplan to reflect their position in the real world. An anchor node is represented on the map as the following icon:
Mobile asset nodes are represented as follows:The color of the icons changes to reflect the status of the node.The Positioning RSSI offset is meant for positioning anchors. This tells positioning engine how much the RSSI value is differing form the other anchors in the network and therefore will result in more accurate positioning. The value should be in a range of -127 to 127 dB. Setting this value requires some radio measurements from the nodes. One example case could be a case where anchor is packed in metallic casing, which reduces the radio range.
Anchor nodes are added and positioned from the Settings -> Node Management screen. Instructions are available in Section “Settings View Screen”. 

Figure 39 - Tags Anchors and Others

 In Positioning mode user can filter the nodes by the positioning type. This can be helpful if you are looking just for the moving tags or concentrating only on putting anchors in their positions.

Areas in WPE

It is possible to define areas to position engine. This can be done in the Areas tab in Building Floor Plans view. See Section “Settings View Screen”. 

Filtering Views

In many places in the WNT client it is possible to select a node property to create a filter. The created filter is then applied globally throughout the client until it is cleared.
 To create a filter from the:

• Overview screen: left click on any widget's data set.
• Nodes screen: right click on a table entry.
• Map screen: right click and drag an area to select nodes. Also, in the floor plan view, the floor or building can be added to the filter from the buttons on the bottom of the screen.
• Neighborhood screen: Selected nodes neighborhood can be added as a filter.

 Once a filter is created, at the top of each screen the active filters will be displayed in a bar, and user can jump between filters by clicking the filter name. Hovering over an active filter name will give the property value on which the filter is set and display a cross mark to remove the filter. For example:

Configuring WNT

Create a shortcut

One of the most usable things when running WNT client against multiple backends is to create a shortcut with server details added to directly connect to the wanted server:
In windows create normal shortcut and modify its Target:
 "C:\Program Files\Wirepas Network Tool\WirepasNetworkTool.exe" yourbackend.extwirepas.com admin WNTADMINPASSWORDHERE true

Modify WNT Client XML files

It is possible to configure the UI of the WNT by modifying WNT UI xml files. Modifying the XML is not very straightforward, and it is not fully covered in document. XML is human readable document, and you can mix and match the properties visible in each section.

These sections however map directly to our source code and there are changes between code versions. Since this is not a proper API, we share properties.csv document in the installation folder of WNT starting from WNT 3.0 version. If you need some specific property name added to some of the views in prior WNT versions, do not hesitate to contact our FAE in order to request the property name for your WNT version.
General XML file and properties.csv is located in:
General: C:\Program Files\Wirepas Network Tool\ WirepasNetworkTool.exe.config
Instance specific XML file:
 C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Wirepas_Ltd\SOME_HASHED_FOLDERWNT_VERSION\user.config

Adding property name to XML file

Here is one example where we add Name property to be visible on Canvas highlight on map. We have already added a name for the sink in the network using Node management. The same principle works for adding properties to the lists. 

<setting name="NodeCanvasHighlightProperties" serializeAs="Xml">

  <value>

    <ArrayOfString xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

      <string>DiagClusterChannelMHz</string>

      <string>DiagVoltage</string>

      <string>Name</string>

    </ArrayOfString>

  </value>

</setting>

Figure 40 - Node name now visible on highlight

Node command

It is possible to send Data Tx commands directly to node by using a hidden feature on node context menu. In this chapter we will show by an example how to add custom node commands according to your needs in your WNT client. (See [5] for more information about data Tx message).

 Example: Open user.config

 Add commands to NodeCommands setting.

<setting name="NodeCommands" serializeAs="Xml">

  <value>

    <ArrayOfString xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

      <string>Set node address, 255, 240, 1, 040001000D06010024000000030005021E00</string>

      <string>Dummy command, 255, 240, 1, 040001000300</string>

    </ArrayOfString>

  </value>

</setting>

In WNT clients node view: Right click on some node to open the context menu. You should see Node command Menu item.
Note that first command (set node address) will change the selected nodes address to 0x24 / 36 with 30s counter (change the value to something else if you already have node with address 0x24 / 36) (note that this command is actually a remote API message inside data Tx message) (see [6]).
Second command (Dummy) will not make any changes to the node but it will send that data message to node.
 This way you can trigger your application specific actions from WNT client without writing any specific client.

WNT Backend

It is possible to install WNT backend on customer server (in customer cloud) enabling customer to manage and configure it completely according to your needs.
See [7] .

References

[1] Wirepas Mesh v2 Diagnostics Reference Manual

[2] Wirepas Connectivity Diagnostics 2.4 GHz Profile Appendix

[3] OTAP Reference Manual

[4] OTAP User Guide

[5] Wirepas Mesh Dual MCU API Reference Manual

[6] Wirepas Mesh Remote API Reference Manual

[7] Wirepas Services Installer User Guide

Revision History

Legal Notice

Use of this document is strictly subject to Wirepas’ Terms of Use and Legal Notice.

Copyright © 2021 Wirepas Oy