BLE long range with internal antenna

[Sunil vignesh]

HI, I am using nrf52832 sdk15.2

with internal antenna as per i checked it will give 15m with obstacles.

is it possible to extend the distance ?

[Andreas]

Hi,

 

As awneil kindly suggested, you can use a different antenna or you can use a different antenna or you can add an RF amplifier/front-end. Bear in mind though that there is not a limited amount of headroom available before start approaching the emission limits for some regions. In general you can have up to 10 dBm EIRP (with BLE) without any concerns, going higher than this is restricted to a limited number of regions (USA as an example) which you need to look into, or you need to use a protocol that complies with the requirements for transmitting at more than 10 dBm. As this is an EIRP limitation it does not matter if the gain comes from an amplifier or an antenna.

 

I would not say the antenna on the nRF52 DK is too bad though, we've measured it to have a gain probably just below 0 dBi. Using a directional antenna with higher gain will of course increase the range, but only in one direction. This is fine for systems where all devices are static, pointing in the same direction all the time, but e.g. for a keyfob or anything connected to a smart phone where you do not have control over the position and orientation of the transceivers, a directional antenna might be counterproductive.

An amplifier/FEM will mainly help in one direction, so in order to get the full potential you must either add one in both ends or make sure the 'other end' already has higher output power if you want the signal to make it back again.

 

In any case, 15m does not seem a whole lot compared to tests we have done. As this is highly dependent on the environment you should want to test it in an environment that is similar for your typical end use case. Testing in an office (usually not very nice environment) might not be fair if the end product will usually have a more open and noise free environment.

 

Best regards,

Andreas

[Sunil vignesh]

Hi Andreas,

how to change the transmission power

how to set gain 0dBi

[awneil]

Sunil vignesh said:

how to change the transmission power

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/37928/just-set-tx-power

Sunil vignesh said:

how to set gain 0dBi

That gain is a physical attribute of the particular antenna - to change it, you would need to change antenna.

[Sunil vignesh]

Thank you awneil

I will refer the post..

[awneil]

Note that the forum lists a selection of Related posts:

I suggest that you explore some of those ...