Bluetooth: Direction Finding Periodic Advertising Beacon

Overview

A simple application demonstrating the BLE Direction Finding CTE Broadcaster functionality by sending Constant Tone Extension with periodic advertising PDUs.

Requirements

• Nordic nRF SoC based board with Direction Finding support (example boards: :ref:`nrf52833dk_nrf52833`, :ref:`nrf5340dk_nrf5340`)
• Antenna matrix for AoD (optional)

Check your SoC's product specification for Direction Finding support if you are unsure.

Building and Running

By default the application supports Angle of Arrival (AoA) and Angle of Departure (AoD) mode.

To use Angle of Arrival mode only, build this application as follows, changing nrf52833dk_nrf52833 as needed for your board:

.. zephyr-app-commands::
   :zephyr-app: samples/bluetooth/direction_finding_connectionless_tx
   :host-os: unix
   :board: nrf52833dk_nrf52833
   :gen-args: -DOVERLAY_CONFIG=overlay-aoa.conf
   :goals: build flash
   :compact:

To run the application on nRF5340DK, a Bluetooth controller application must also run on the network core. The :zephyr_file:`samples/bluetooth/hci_rpmsg` sample application may be used. To build this sample with direction finding support enabled:

• Copy :zephyr_file:`samples/bluetooth/direction_finding_connectionless_tx/boards/nrf52833dk_nrf52833.overlay` to a new file, :file:`samples/bluetooth/hci_rpmsg/boards/nrf5340dk_nrf5340_cpunet.overlay`.
• Copy :zephyr_file:`samples/bluetooth/direction_finding_connectionless_tx/boards/nrf52833dk_nrf52833.conf` to a new file, :file:`samples/bluetooth/hci_rpmsg/boards/nrf5340dk_nrf5340_cpunet.conf`. Add the line CONFIG_BT_EXT_ADV=y to enable extended size of :kconfig:`CONFIG_BT_BUF_CMD_TX_SIZE` to support the LE Set Extended Advertising Data command.

Antenna matrix configuration

To use this sample with Angle of Departure enabled on Nordic SoCs, additional configuration must be provided via :ref:`devicetree <dt-guide>` to enable control of the antenna array, as well as via the ant_patterns array in the source code.

An example devicetree overlay is in :zephyr_file:`samples/bluetooth/direction_finding_connectionless_tx/boards/nrf52833dk_nrf52833.overlay`. You can customize this overlay when building for the same board, or create your own board-specific overlay in the same directory for a different board. See :dtcompatible:`nordic,nrf-radio` for documentation on the properties used in this overlay. See :ref:`set-devicetree-overlays` for information on setting up and using overlays.

Note that antenna matrix configuration for the nRF5340 SoC is part of the network core application. When :ref:`bluetooth-hci-rpmsg-sample` is used as network core application, the antenna matrix configuration should be stored in the file :file:`samples/bluetooth/hci_rpmsg/boards/nrf5340dk_nrf5340_cpunet.overlay` instead.

In addition to the devicetree configuration, to successfully use the Direction Finding locator when the AoA mode is enabled, also update the antenna patterns in the :cpp:var:`ant_patterns` array in :zephyr_file:`samples/bluetooth/direction_finding_connectionless_tx/src/main.c`.