BLE Long Range

[FChaxel]

Hi,

I'm testing a PCA10056 S140 (nrF 52840 PDK), SDK15.

I want to test long range extension : using ble_app_att_mtu_throughput application sample.

But when I change :

.primary_phy   = BLE_GAP_PHY_1MBPS, // Must be changed to connect in long range. (BLE_GAP_PHY_CODED)

by

.primary_phy   = BLE_GAP_PHY_CODED,

I got and NRF_ERROR_INVALID_PARAM during the call to

sd_ble_gap_adv_set_configure

Nothing else modified into the all code. Application working well @1Mbps.

Something missing ? (appart also modifying scan parameters to fitt the same encoding way of advertising).

Bye.

[Kenneth]

Hello, you will also need to change the advertisement type, for instance, from:
adv_params.properties.type = BLE_GAP_ADV_TYPE_CONNECTABLE_SCANNABLE_UNDIRECTED;
to:
adv_params.properties.type = BLE_GAP_ADV_TYPE_EXTENDED_CONNECTABLE_NONSCANNABLE_UNDIRECTED; 

[FChaxel]

Hi,


No more runtime error at this point but no more advertising with BLE_GAP_ADV_TYPE_EXTENDED_CONNECTABLE_NONSCANNABLE_UNDIRECTED, even at 1Mbs with BLE 4.2 encoding.

And with this configuration (BLE_GAP_PHY_CODED & BLE_GAP_ADV_TYPE_EXTENDED_CONNECTABLE_NONSCANNABLE_UNDIRECTED) another error occur at runtime when the m_scan_param.scan_phys is set to BLE_GAP_PHY_CODED.

I just want to make a basic test: two boards using the BLE5 long range mode and communicates -see the advertising packets- with each other (such as the original sample ble_app_mtu_throughput) ? .. in order to go far far away to check distance !

Tank's

[Kenneth]

Have you seen this blog post:

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/b/blog/posts/testing-long-range-coded-phy-with-nordic-solution-it-simply-works-922075585 

[FChaxel]

Hi,

OK thank's I can see what I want, and I will be able to play and modify it in the way I want.

But it's confusing because this code is not the same present in the SDK15 zip file downloaded 2 weeks ago.

Bye.

[Kenneth]

Hopefully you can make it work. Seems like different engineers like to do it differently, some use the ble_advertisment module to handle the advertisment, while other use the softdevice api to setup advertisment directly without the ble_advertisment module to handle the advertisment.

Best regards,
Kenneth

[FChaxel]

Hi,

The .extended field in the scan_params should be set to 1 :

static ble_gap_scan_params_t const m_scan_param =
{
    .active        = 0x00,
    .extended      = 0x01,
    .interval      = SCAN_INTERVAL,
    .window        = SCAN_WINDOW,
    .timeout       = 0x0000, // No timeout.
    .scan_phys     = BLE_GAP_PHY_CODED, //BLE_GAP_PHY_1MBPS,
    .filter_policy = BLE_GAP_SCAN_FP_ACCEPT_ALL,
};

and the buffer should be defined with a greater value :

static uint8_t m_scan_buffer_data[BLE_GAP_SCAN_BUFFER_EXTENDED_MIN]; /**< buffer where advertising reports will be stored by the SoftDevice. */

/**@brief Pointer to the buffer where advertising reports will be stored by the SoftDevice. */
static ble_data_t m_scan_buffer =
{
    m_scan_buffer_data,
    BLE_GAP_SCAN_BUFFER_EXTENDED_MIN
};

After that all done. Thanks.