Calculate accurate distance between 2 nrf52832 devices using proximity model

[ani]

Hello,

I am using nRF52832 devices and calculating the distance using RSSI, but it is not that accurate.

Can you please let me know whether we can calculate the accurate distance through Proximity model or not?

[Sigurd]

Hi,

RSSI is only going to give you a very broad "near" or "far" estimate. It will not give you accurate distance. Maybe +-5 meter. That said, the new nRF52811 SoC has direction finding capability, but the software for that is not ready yet.

[ani]

Hello,

Is there any way to calculate the distance?

[Sigurd]

Any of the BLE examples can give you the RSSI. There is no examples that calculates the distance. There are several theoretical formulas (you can find a simple formula here) you can use to calculate the RSSI value into meters, but in practice the RSSI signal is too unreliable for any accurate distance measuring. There will always be too many variables affecting the measured RSSI, like radio interference, signal multi-path/reflections,etc