Direction finding beacon and 802.15.4 in the nRF5340

RE: Direction finding beacon and 802.15.4 in the nRF5340

user46557 — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 08:51:42 GMT

This should be supported in the nRF Connect SDK 2.0.0. Try the connectionless beacon example. Note that you have to select the SoftDevice Controller to enable this feature, it won't work with the Zephyr controller.

The Zephyr controller is the only controller that supports other modes than the connectionless transmitter so you have to use this for all other modes (and then you can't run Thread/Zigbee). The 802.15.4 MAC is not supported if I am not mistaken, we only support solutions using the MPSL.

Note: if you want to have a functional system then you should only use the sleepy end devices with the beacon as the Bluetooth stack will take control of the timing and this will increase packet loss for the Thread/Zigbee links. Not a problem for sleepy end devices but will reduce the performance of any router enabled devices. High advertising rate will be worse. This is always the case when using Bluetooth concurrent with Thread/Zigbee.

RE: Direction finding beacon and 802.15.4 in the nRF5340

user115782 — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 16:06:41 GMT

Hello PaKa and Simon,

Does version 2.0.0 of the SDK support running an 802.15.4 transmitter alongside the BLE connectionless direction finding beacon?

If it does, are there sample projects that I can use to try it out?

Thanks again,

Mike Norton

RE: Direction finding beacon and 802.15.4 in the nRF5340

user75734 — Thu, 05 May 2022 12:24:18 GMT

Hi again Mike, that is more of a sales related question. We focus on currently released products and features, and never speculate or discuss future implementations and when that might be released here on DevZone. Please contact your regional sales manager to get details on future releases or a roadmap. If you don't know who this is you can get in touch by filling out the Sales Related Questions form here.

Best regards,

Simon

RE: Direction finding beacon and 802.15.4 in the nRF5340

user115782 — Wed, 04 May 2022 15:29:15 GMT

Thank you PaKa and Simon,

Do you know when and in which release of the SDK that this feature will be supported?

Mike

RE: Direction finding beacon and 802.15.4 in the nRF5340

user46557 — Wed, 04 May 2022 08:50:30 GMT

Timeslot API is only supported with the Softdevice Controller Subsystem (SDC) or 802.15.4 based protocols like Thread or Zigbee.

The Direction Finding transmitter function is only supported in the Zephyr controller today.

This means that today you can't build a network core image that supports simultaneous 802.15.4 and Bluetooth Direction Finding transmission. This is planned supported so you should watch the SDC updates to see when it is added..

RE: Direction finding beacon and 802.15.4 in the nRF5340

user115782 — Tue, 03 May 2022 23:41:29 GMT

test-devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../dfc_5F00_tx_5F00_app.zip

Hi Simon,

Attached is the zipped up code that I've been using if you would like to check it out. The app core project is "dfc_tx_app" and the network core project is "dfc_tx_net".

Thanks again,

Mike Norton

RE: Direction finding beacon and 802.15.4 in the nRF5340

user115782 — Tue, 03 May 2022 15:32:45 GMT

Hi Simon,

Thank you for the speedy reply.

I've taken the approach that you recommend. I started with the samples direction_finding_connectionless_tx and multiprotocol_rpmsg for the nRF5340 and combined the samples. However, I am encountering a hard fault on the application processor when I enable 802.15.4 on the nRF5340.

Bluetooth initialization...ASSERTION FAIL [err == 0] @ WEST_TOPDIR/zephyr/subsys/bluetooth/host/hci_core.c:305
*** Booting Zephyr OS build v2.7.99-ncs1-1 ***
Starting Connectionless Beacon Demo
Bluetooth initialization...

I enable 802.15.4 on the network processor with these configurations in prj.conf:

CONFIG_NRF_802154_SER_RADIO=y

CONFIG_NRF_RTC_TIMER_USER_CHAN_COUNT=2

I enable 802.15.4 on the application processor with this configuration in prj.conf:

CONFIG_NRF_802154_SER_HOST=y

It appears as if the application is timing out waiting for a network buffer in the application processor and triggering an ASSERT.

Thanks,

Mike

RE: Direction finding beacon and 802.15.4 in the nRF5340

user75734 — Tue, 03 May 2022 09:44:01 GMT

Hi Mike

Since the nRF5340 only has one radio, you won't be able to have a direction finding beacon advertising simultaneously as running an 802.15.4 application, but I think you could switch between the two if that's acceptable.

Please note that a direction finding device will need X amount of time to transmit the IQ samples before giving over the control of the radio peripheral to whatever the 802.15.4 application is doing.

You can use the multiprotocol service layer libraries which provies services for multiprotocol applications alllowing the 802.15.4 radio driver to negotiate transmission timeslots with the radio controller.

Best regards,

Simon