nRF Bluetooth Mesh

Question

I have a requirement to collect data over a plant, say a power plant whose size may be 3 KM by 3KM. I am planning to have a Bluetooth mesh and collect data and control equipments. The collected data shall be given to the SCADA installed in their plant. 
 Can message / command hop and reach the final destination in a Bluetooth mesh? 
 What is the line of site range of Bluetooth devices? 
 Kindly suggest required development boards and Bluetooth devices so that I can arrange a demo to my client?

daviddedwin · Answer

Thanks for asking this question. 3KM by 3KM is a pretty large area and would increase the number of hops in the mesh to beyond significant levels, by signification I mean a hop count of more than 10. I would strongly urge you create zones in the mesh and also plan for a backhaul between the zones. 
 Each zone should have 100-200 nodes typically, the nodes per zone can be increased if your bandwidth requirements are very low but I would start at the suggested typical and then move to larger zones. You should have a backhaul between the zones like LoRAWAN or just Ethernet. Each zone will need a zone controller that sits on the backhaul. 
 Line of sight range where both end points are visible, obstructions are not present , outdoor and the antenna performance is good can be about 100m even on 0dbm, you can also get better range when you switch the RF side to the CODED PHY (as opposed to standard 1Mbit PHY in the mesh spec), range using the same constraints stated earlier can be about 900m to 1km. 
 Additionally evaluate a external PA/LNA for the mesh which will get you better performance as compared to using the mesh on CODED PHY 
 You must control the relay nodes that are used for hopping very strictly so that you get the bandwidth that you need.

nRF Bluetooth Mesh

Top Replies