Channel/physical interference at nRF52840

Hi,

Here is my previous ticket. 

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/83856/channel-interference-at-nrf52840

I haven't had response tho that's why I made a ticket again. 

I want to know how long frequency distance and physical distance should be need for the pair?

And one more question is doesn't it matter with Wi-Fi interference? 

Regards,

Minju

  • Hi,

    I am using nRF52840 and channel 20, 21.

    I want to know whether there is any channel interference issue using nFR52840 in BLE.

     

    I did some test about that and I am going to explain it.

    There are two transmitters and two receivers. (one is ch20, other is ch21)

    transmitters and receivers

    I tested how many data can actually get in below two different conditions

    1. Put them far away (50cm) from each of them (transmitter & receiver set)
    2. Put close to all transmitters and receivers

    With three different interference conditions (Without Wi-Fi / set Wi-Fi channel on 2417MHz / set Wi-Fi channel on 2422MHz)

     

    And there are the average receive rate of each cases.

     

    Condition 1

    Condition 2

    Wi-Fi off

    96.02%

    83.27%

    2417MHz

    99.95%

    78.47%

    2422MHz

    92.27%

    79.70%

    Average

    96.08%

    80.48%

     

    It seems like there are some interference depends on the distance of transmitter & receiver set and Wi-Fi.

     

    So I want to know is that right? Or is that just a coincidence?

     

    I attached the file about that test result just in case.

    If I did not explain enough, feel free to ask about it.

     3884.Channel interference on nRF52840.xlsx

    I hope to get the answer about that.

    This is expected as the difference in frequency is low. When the TX of one pair is near the RX of the other pair, the power of the TX will partly block the RX. The problem is worst at the adjacent or neighbor channel. Remember that the adjacent channel is 2 MHz away in 2 Mbps mode. If you increase the distance in frequency between the pairs, the packet loss will be better. 

    This called selectivity and describes the ratio between the wanted and unwanted signal at different frequencies: https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/topic/ps_nrf52840/radio.html#unique_595666871

    You can see the same if the receiver is close to a wifi transmitter. But as the bandwidth is much higher for the Wifi transmitter, you must increase the frequency distance more to get "out" of the wifi-transmitter bandwidth.

    You can repeat the test on channels 18 and 22 for instance if you are using 2 Mbps and 20 and 22 for 1 Mbps and see how the packet loss looks like then. 

  • Hi there!

    I have a question about the data of WiFi off case and 2417MHz case.

    Why is the average receive rate lower when WiFi is off?

    I suppose this is quite counter-intuitive, since there will be less interference when WiFi is off.

    Best :-)

    Ethan

  • Probably just a coincidence. Interference should have the opposite effect. 

  • Okay. So it's a random error.

    Got it. Thanks.

    Best :-)

    Ethan

  • Hi, there!

    Sorry to interrupt again! How could we set just one channel in use? In BT Spec V5.3 P2799, it says:

    "The minimum number of used channels shall be 2."

    I have tried just setting one channel on in the channel map, but it returns an error.

    So, I suppose we could not constrain the channel map to contain only one used channel. Then, how are we supposed to set only one channel in use? Any idea/hints?

    Really appreciate it if this could be helped!

    Best regards :-)

    Ethan

Related