Increasing throughput for nrf52832

We are using nrf52832 with S132.

In our application, we have 1 device as central and it will connect to 4 peripheral devices.

Central device needs to send 128 bytes of data to each of 4 device at interval of 30 msec.

We have extended the data length to send 128 bytes in 1 packet.

Currently we are sending these packets at interval of 100 msec and still packets are getting dropped.

Connection interval is set to 7.5msec.

So how can we increase throughput to achieve our requirements?

  • Hi Haresh05,

    Simon is out of office, and I will support you in his absence.

    Could you please give me the details I list above?

    1. About your issue:
      1. How long is it taking to establish the connection?
      2. Does it happen from the first connection, or does it only happen with the 3rd/4th connection?
    2. Connection parameter
      1. Connection Interval
      2. Link Layer Data Length
      3. Supervision Timeout
      4. Peripheral Latency

    It could be that the radio is too busy maintaining existing connections that it cannot serve the establishment of a new connection.

    Finally, I hope you can excuse some delays in our responses. My team is facing high loading due to some unavailability, and I am also partially out of office this week.

    Hieu

  • Hi Hieu,

    How long is it taking to establish the connection?

    It takes 10-12 minutes to connect to all 4 peripherals.

    Does it happen from the first connection, or does it only happen with the 3rd/4th connection?

    Yes. Disconnection with error 0x3E happens from 1st connection

    Connection parameter

    Connection Interval:-  MIN - 12.5msec

                                       MAX - 18.75msec
    Link Layer Data Length -  158
    Supervision Timeout     -  4 Sec
    Peripheral Latency        -  0

    - Haresh

  • Hi Haresh,

    Haresh05 said:
    Yes. Disconnection with error 0x3E happens from 1st connection

    Disconnection error 0x3E is Connection Failed to be Established.

    When this issue happen, does it happen right at the connection attempt or after a connection is formed and some TX/RX happens?

    What is your scanning parameter?

    Haresh05 said:

    Connection Interval:-  MIN - 12.5msec

                                       MAX - 18.75msec
    Link Layer Data Length -  158
    Supervision Timeout     -  4 Sec
    Peripheral Latency        -  0

    Are those your SDK configurations or are they the actual final connection parameters that you retrieved from SoftDevice event?

    Your connection interval is very low and data length is quite long. Each connection interval, I expect the SoftDevice to be quite occupied with serving the connection events. That would explain the difficulty in making the 2nd/3rd/4th connections. 

    However, nothing really explains why the first connection is hard to establish. Do you think you can get a sniffer trace of when this problem happens with the first connection?

    Hieu

  • Hi,

    When this issue happen, does it happen right at the connection attempt or after a connection is formed and some TX/RX happens?

    It happens right at the connection attempt.

    What is your scanning parameter?

    Scan Interval - 100 msec

    Scan Window - 80 msec

    Are those your SDK configurations or are they the actual final connection parameters that you retrieved from SoftDevice event?

    These are SDK Configurations. I have not checked the parameters on softdevice event. Still, as I am setting the same parameter in Central and peripheral devices and I think it should be the same after a connection is established.

    Your connection interval is very low and data length is quite long

    It is done to increase the throughput. I can increase those if I am getting the throughput we require for our application.

    On Peripheral Advertising Interval is set to 100 msec

    Haresh

  • Hi Haresh,

    Haresh05 said:

    Scan Interval - 100 msec

    Scan Window - 80 msec

    You can see that this means the scan windows needs to take 80% of the radio time to work as expected.

    When you start having connections, it might get difficult to schedule that much time for the scan window. What could then happen is scanning takes a long time to successfully find the peripheral. That somewhat multiplies with the difficulty to schedule the connection establishment, causing issue with the later connections.

    However, I still cannot see a clue for why you have problem since the 1st connection. I think we will need a sniffer trace to figure that out. Do you think you can get one?

    It would be best if you can get a pair of device log and sniffer trace of the whole process, including the advertising, scanning, and connection establishment which failed with error 0x3E.

    If you need instruction to make a sniffer trace, you can refer to Lesson 6 of Nordic's Bluetooth Low Energy Fundamental online course.

    Hieu

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