What is NAN?
Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN), also known as Wi-Fi Aware, is a mechanism defined by the Wi-Fi Alliance. NAN is an additional Wi-Fi interface to micro-AP (uAP), Station (STA), and Wi-Fi direct (wfd) that allows for quick discovery without the connection-association flow. The interface named: nan0.In this demo test, NAN is used to Wi-Fi locate and/or range.
NXP Wi-Fi Products Supports NAN:
Currently we have our IW612, IW611,AW611 and AW693 support NAN feature on Linux OS, and the remote devices should also be Linux OS or Android OS. Currently we do not support for remote device which running iOS.
Below is the Release Notes showing which product in our NXP supports NAN feature.
Caution: There is typo in above release note. Actually IW610 doesn't support NAN feature.
Demo setup:
In this doc, the test is based on 2 IW612 module: Murata 2EL M.2 module on I.MX93-EVK which is running Linux OS, the Linux kernel is L6.12.49.
IW612's driver and FW version is: SDIW612---18.99.8.p3--MM6X18542.p8-(FP92), and the nanapp in this release could not outout wls message, official working nanapp will be in next release, available in the end of March/2026.
wifi_mod_para.conf
SDIW612 = {
cfg80211_wext=0xf
max_vir_bss=1
cal_data_cfg=none
ps_mode=2
auto_ds=2
host_mlme=1
drv_mode=0x17
fw_name=nxp/sduart_nw61x_v1.bin.se
}
Copy correct version's nanapp and mlanutl and mlanwls to 2 boards, and add execute permission.
root@imx93evk:~# chmod +x nanapp
root@imx93evk:~# chmod +x mlanutl
root@imx93evk:~# chmod +x mlanwls
Copy correct FWand driver: mlan.ko + moal.ko(Cross compiled with L6.12.49 linux kernel BSP, not included in this doc).
After the I.MX93-EVK board boot up, need to unload the default L6.12.49's Wi-Fi driver, then load the newer L6.18.2 Wi-Fi driver and FW.
The whole process is shown as follow:
The generated wls_leader.log and wls_follower.log files contain location information. The Wireshark sniffer contains NAN-related packets. Please see attached .pdf file for more detailed steps and logs outputs.
How to configure to use Wireshark capture Sniffer logs On Ubuntu PC 24.04.2 LTS?
Below is the commands for your reference.
sudo iw dev //Check your Wi-Fi card name.
Here is:wlp111s0 for me.
sudo ifconfig wlp111s0 down
sudo systemctl stop NetworkManager
sudo killall wpa_supplicant //Here need to stop NetworkManager and wpa_supplicant, otherwise, after we configure wlp111s0 into monitor mode, these 2 service will automatically change it to managed mode.
sudo iwconfig wlp111s0 mode monitor //set wlp111s0 into monitor mode
sudo iwconfig //check whether set into monitor mode successfully. Here should show Mode:monitor
sudo wireshark //Need to use sudo permission to run Wireshark, otherwise, could not use Wireshark to capture sniffer.
Then choose wlp111s0 to capture sniffer.
Reference link:
Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN) -Application note (confidential)
Best regards,
Christine.