nRF54L15 antenna diversity for standard BLE

[Maik]

Hi all, 

the nRF54L15 hardware can support an external RF antenna switch. I don't see any hardware limitations (the switch could be controlled via GPIO), but the more interesting question is whether the software can handle a real antenna switch (antenna diversity).

As far as I know, there is currently no ready-to-use automatic BLE antenna diversity API for normal BLE communication. It seems to be implemented only for Channel Sounding. True per-packet diversity would require radio-level support, which is not currently provided as a standard Nordic BLE feature. At least, I haven't found anything about it in the documentation.

My question: Is antenna diversity support for standard BLE planned for the nRF54L15, or is there an existing solution for it?

Best regards

Maik

[Kazi Afroza Sultana]

Hello Mark,

I got feedback from team.

Antenna diversity on bluetooth is not easy to implement as pre-amble is too short for switching one antenna to another. In 802.15.4, pre-ambles are long that can support antenna diversity. 

In Bluetooth, we have channel hopping so chance of getting bad signal on all the channels is low, so, when there is multipath issues transmission can occur on a different channel. 

You can do application layer antenna diversity with Bluetooth but not packet level.

 

[Maik]

Hi Kazi,

thank you very much for your reply and the information!

BR Maik