Custom card setup for TCP

RE: Custom card setup for TCP

BENBF — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 10:29:22 GMT

Hello, thank you for your advice. I would greatly appreciate a review of our schematic. I will soon submit a new ticket with information about our hardware. I sincerely appreciate your time, and I wish you a great day.

RE: Custom card setup for TCP

Kenneth — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 11:52:51 GMT

Hello,

Dejan is out of office this week. I can see the case is slightly lengthy so I think it's best he follow up when he is back.

My quick comment would be to ensure that the hardware is good, e.g. measure output power on a spectrum analyzer using radio test. If no one from Nordic have already reviewed your schematic and layout, and helped with the tuning of the antenna and matching network, then that is something you may consider to do in a new case.

Kenneth

RE: Custom card setup for TCP

BENBF — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 16:56:44 GMT

Hello, I apologize for the delayed response.

We are currently using NCS version 2.4.2. It appears that our board encounters more difficulties when connecting to a 5GHz network compared to a 2.4GHz network.

I have collected metrics regarding our expectations and the outcomes we achieved by altering several metrics. The varying metrics include:

The number of bytes sent (either 5,760,000 or 138,240,000 bytes).
The CPU clock speed (either 64 MHz or 128 MHz).
The WiFi band bandwidth it is connected to (either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz).

The different sections of my tables are as follows:

"Test number": The test's unique identifier.
"Did connect to WiFi": Indicates whether the card successfully connected to the WiFi within a 15-second timeout.
"Did connect to TCP server": Set to "no" if an error "116: Connection timed out" occurred.
"No error while sending": Set to "no" if an error "105: No buffer space available" occurred.
"Number of bytes sent": The quantity of bytes transmitted before encountering an error.
"Did all go well": Set to "yes" if all the bytes were successfully transmitted.

Number of bytes sent: 5760000; CPU clock speed: 64 MHz; WiFi bandwidth: 5 GHz

Test Number	Did connect to WiFi	Did connect to TCP server	No error while sending	Number of byte sent	Did all went good
1	yes	yes	yes	5760000	yes
2	yes	no	/	0	no
3	no	/	/	0	no
4	yes	no	/	0	no
5	no	/	/	0	no
6	yes	yes	no	2195840	no
7	no	/	/	0	no
8	yes	no	/	0	no
9	no	/	/	0	no
10	yes	no	/	0	no

Number of byte sent: 5760000; CPU clock speed: 64 MHz; WiFi bandwidth: 2.4 GHz

Test Number	Did connect to WiFi	Did connect to TCP server	No error while sending	Number of byte sent	Did all went good
1	yes	no	/	0	no
2	yes	yes	yes	5760000	yes
3	yes	yes	yes	5760000	yes
4	yes	no	/	0	no
5	yes	yes	yes	5760000	yes
6	yes	yes	yes	5760000	yes
7	yes	no	/	0	no
8	yes	yes	yes	5760000	yes
9	yes	yes	yes	5760000	yes
10	yes	yes	yes	5760000	yes

Number of bytes sent: 138240000; CPU clock speed: 64 MHz; WiFi bandwidth: 2.4 GHz

Test Number	Did connect to WiFi	Did connect to TCP server	No error while sending	Number of byte sent	Did all went good
1	yes	yes	no	46043756	no
2	yes	no	/	0	no
3	yes	no	/	0	no
4	yes	yes	yes	138240000	yes
5	yes	yes	yes	138240000	yes
6	yes	yes	no	134058988	no
7	yes	yes	yes	138240000	yes
8	no	/	/	0	no
9	no	/	/	0	no
10	yes	yes	no	67868328	no

Number of bytes sent: 138240000; CPU clock speed: 128 MHz; WiFi bandwidth: 2.4 GHz

Test Number	Did connect to WiFi	Did connect to TCP server	No error while sending	Number of byte sent	Did all went good
1	yes	yes	no	20579076	no
2	yes	yes	no	47933824	no
3	yes	yes	no	1083320	no
4	yes	yes	no	122121152	no
5	yes	yes	yes	138240000	yes
6	yes	no	/	0	no
7	yes	yes	yes	138240000	yes
8	yes	no	/	0	no
9	yes	yes	yes	138240000	yes
10	yes	yes	yes	138240000	yes

Number of bytes sent: 138240000; CPU clock speed: 64 MHz; WiFi bandwidth: 5 GHz

Test Number	Did connect to WiFi	Did connect to TCP server	No error while sending	Number of byte sent	Did all went good
1	yes	no	/	0	no
2	no	/	/	0	no
3	yes	no	/	0	no
4	no	/	/	0	no
5	yes	yes	no	49352064	no
6	yes	yes	no	37452729	no
7	no	/	/	0	no
8	yes	yes	yes	138240000	yes
9	yes	yes	no	91152384	no
10	yes	yes	no	25493504	no

Number of bytes sent: 138240000; CPU clock speed: 128 MHz; WiFi bandwidth: 5 GHz

Test Number	Did connect to WiFi	Did connect to TCP server	No error while sending	Number of byte sent	Did all went good
1	no	/	/	0	no
2	no	/	/	0	no
3	yes	yes	no	5271552	no
4	yes	yes	no	50428736	no
5	yes	yes	no	10810584	no
6	no	/	/	0	no
7	no	/	/	0	no
8	no	/	/	0	no
9	yes	yes	yes	138240000	yes
10	no	/	/	0	no

Thank you very much for your time. Please feel free to reach out to me for further information. Good evening.

RE: Custom card setup for TCP

dejans — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 18:08:48 GMT

Hi,

Which NCS version do you use?

Could you please provide more information about the error which you observed with regard to connection establishment and data transfer? Is connection to the wi-fi network established each time or only sometimes? When connection gets established how much data is transferred before you see error? Can you consistently reproduce your issue?

Have you tried to change the frequency band and/or use another access point? Could you provide results? Is your issue reproducible when access point/frequency band get changed?

Best regards,
Dejan

RE: Custom card setup for TCP

BENBF — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 15:56:34 GMT

Hello,

Thank you for your response. I appreciate your assistance. To provide more information about how my code works, I'll break down the process for you.

On the custom development board:

I set a custom MAC address using `net_if_set_link_addr(iface, mac_addr, 6, NET_LINK_IEEE802154)`.
I bring up the network interface with `net_if_up(iface)`.
I configure the clock speed using `nrfx_clock_divider_set(NRF_CLOCK_DOMAIN_HFCLK, NRF_CLOCK_HFCLK_DIV_1)`.

I connect to a 5GHz WiFi network with the following parameters:

parameters->timeout = HC_WIFI_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT_MS;
parameters->ssid = user_ssid;
parameters->ssid_length = user_ssid_len;
parameters->security = WIFI_SECURITY_TYPE_PSK;
parameters->psk = user_psk;
parameters->psk_length = user_psk_len;
parameters->channel = WIFI_CHANNEL_ANY;
parameters->mfp = WIFI_MFP_OPTIONAL;

After the WiFi connection is established, I attempt to connect to a TCP server using these steps:

Connecting to the TCP Server:

I create a socket with `socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0)`.

I set up the server address with the following configuration:

tcp_sockaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
tcp_sockaddr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY;
tcp_sockaddr.sin_port = htons(4040);
zsock_inet_pton(AF_INET, HC_SERVER_ADDR, &tcp_sockaddr.sin_addr);

I initiate the connection with `connect(tcp_socket, (struct sockaddr *)&tcp_sockaddr, sizeof(struct sockaddr_in)`. However, I've encountered issues with this step, and it often fails to connect, especially compared to when I use the nrf7002 card.

Subsequently, I send a large volume of data packets to the server using repeated calls to `send(tcp_socket, buff, 4096, 0)`. It's worth noting that the data packet size may vary, but I expect approximately 138,240,000 bytes to be divided into smaller packets.

Regarding the server, it operates as follows:

I create a socket with `socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0)`.

I configure the socket address as follows:

socket_addr.sin_family = AF_INET;
socket_addr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY;
socket_addr.sin_port = htons(4040);

I bind the socket with `bind(socket_fd, (const struct sockaddr *)&socket_addr, sizeof(socket_addr)`.
I listen for a client with `listen(_socket_fd, 1)`.
Upon receiving a client connection request, I accept it using `accept(_socket_fd, _socket_addr, (socklen_t *)&_addr_len)`.
I then receive data in a loop with `recv(_client_fd, _buffer, 4096, 0)`.

I am aware that the TCP data doesn't always arrive in 4096-byte chunks, and this variance is expected. As mentioned, I anticipate around 138,240,000 bytes divided into smaller packets.

If you require any additional information or have further questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. Thank you for your assistance, and have a great day.

RE: Custom card setup for TCP

dejans — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 10:13:08 GMT

Hi,

Could you provide more information about your application?

Have you tried connecting to another access point to check if the issue is present there as well?

Best regards,
Dejan