Description
802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6 / 6E, ratified 2021) added OFDMA, 1024-QAM, and 6 GHz operation (Wi-Fi 6E), which together raise the maximum CSI subcarrier count to 1024 over a 160 MHz channel and unlock 6 GHz bands. For sensing this is the first standard where CSI resolution starts to rival commodity FMCW radar ranging. The relevant CSI extraction toolchain is picoscenes on Intel AX200 / AX210; mainstream Nexmon does not yet target 11ax silicon. Wi-Fi 6 is also the platform on top of which ieee-802-11bf (WLAN sensing) is being standardised, so it's the bridge generation between today's hacked-firmware CSI and a future of native sensing-aware Wi-Fi.
Specs / capabilities
- 2.4 / 5 / 6 GHz (6E) bands
- Up to 160 MHz channels — up to 1024 OFDM subcarriers (Wi-Fi 6 4x downlink)
- OFDMA — multiple stations share a single channel slot, complicates CSI per-station extraction
- 1024-QAM, longer OFDM symbol (12.8 µs)
- BSS Coloring / spatial reuse
Tooling
- picoscenes on Intel AX200 / AX210 (the only mature open extractor today)
- Some vendor-specific captures via Wi-Fi 6 chipset SDKs (ASUS, NETGEAR, Cisco)
Used by (papers)
- 2023+ Wi-Fi sensing papers exploring 6 GHz / wide-band CSI