Cannot get 802.15.4 to work in multiprotocol mode

[fgeldenh]

I have implemented a project that incorporates the 802.15.4 radio driver for use with a in-house developed router stack.

The implementation appears to work fine between multiple nRF52840DK boards,.

Our project requires using BLE and 802.15.4 at the same time. I have read and followed the documentation as outlined in the GitHub radio driver WIKI. 

My problem is that if I start advertising on BLE, then the 802.15.4 stack does not transmit at all, although it does when I do not start advertising.

I am using the nrf_raal_softdevice for multiprotocol support. I assumed that the 802.15.4 stack would handle all the arbitration automatically. However I must be missing something.

Please can you assist by giving me some pointers as to what to check.

Thank you

[fgeldenh]

I have read all of those. I am under the impression that the 802.15.4 stack handles the radio arbiter itself. I can see it calling these but it still does not work. I am using SD 6.1.1

[fgeldenh]

Hi - I think I am on the track of what my issue is. I have not tied the SOC events to  nrf_raal_softdevice_soc_evt_handler

I am working on that now - trying to figure out how to subscribe to soc events

[haakonsh]

I suggest you check out the multiprotocol BLE and Thread examples, specifically how sdk_config.h is set up for a multiprotocol use-case.

[fgeldenh]

Hi - I have it all fully functional now. What was required was to implement the SOC Observer and then implement a Soc event handler which routes radio events to the 802.15.4 arbiter. Documentation was a bit cryptic, but if one reads it enough times it eventually dawns!

I am sure many who try to implement will be caught by this. Another important item is not to use the 802.15.4 source files from the SDK, but rather from the Github radio driver. They are more up to date. Sample makefiles would also be a great help. Could have saved me a week of head scratching.

Thank you for your help. You may close the ticket.

[haakonsh]

Then they now have something to reference if they are stuck on the same issue :) 

fgeldenh said:

Another important item is not to use the 802.15.4 source files from the SDK, but rather from the Github radio driver. They are more up to date.

 That is true, the driver is improved all the time, but with API compatibility with the latest SDKs. 

fgeldenh said:

Sample makefiles would also be a great help. Could have saved me a week of head scratching.

I think a good approach is to see how the concurrent BLE and ZigBee/Thread examples are set up with regards to the RAAL. They should have makefiles in the 'armgcc' target folder.