Suggestions for measuring Bit Error Rate across BLE connection

[apolcari]

Hello,

We have a test setup that consists of an application running on an Android device (BLE central) collecting data from a BLE peripherial device (with a Nordic Nrf51822 chip). We would like to perform bit/packet error rate tests when the BLE connection is active.
If anyone has recommendations for off the shelf tools for performing bit/packet error rate tests, please share your suggestions. Thanks in advance for your help!

[Hung Bui]

Hi Apolcari,

The number of packet error (CRC error for example) or retransmission are not available for the nRF51 application and also on the app on Android, as far as I know.

What you can do is to use a sniffer to track the connection and count the number of re-transmission or CRC error.

Beside the ready to use sniffer, we also provide in the .zip package the SnifferAPI (SnifferAPI.zip) so you can build your automation test tool.

[jvillapando]

Is there any update to this? We would like to do error rate testing as well, and I was wondering if this is the only solution.

[Hung Bui]

Hi,

You can have a look at this blog, by observing the RX END event, the author managed to measure the packet error rate: https://jimmywongiot.com/2019/08/26/__trashed-5/

[jvillapando]

Is there any way to measure this on the sniffer? I already set it up but I will take a look at jimmy's method as well.

[Hung Bui]

I'm not an expert in wireshark but you can use a filter in wireshark to see only the CRC failed packets. Find a malformed packet and right click on the attribute at the bottom bar and choose Apply as Filter.