RoadTest: Review the Nordic Wi-Fi Locationing Solution with nRF7002-EK and nRF9160-DK
Author: fyaocn
Creation date:
Evaluation Type: Development Boards & Tools
Did you receive all parts the manufacturer stated would be included in the package?: True
What other parts do you consider comparable to this product?: nRF 52480 nRF9161
What were the biggest problems encountered?: Downloading nRF SDKs takes too much times.
Detailed Review:
This roadtest for Nordic's SSID-based Wi-Fi Locationing Solution is based on unique Nordic nRF70002 companion IC, which is low-power Wi-Fi 6 chip, optimized for Wi-Fi scanning. When used along with Nordic’s nRF9160 Series cellular System-in-Package (SiP), it enables SSID-based Wi-Fi locationing. Instead of using the traditional means for locationing, SSID-based Wi-Fi locationing scans the signals from nearby Wi-Fi access points to determine the location.
What is in the delivery packake
Here is the key parts, the nRF9160 development kit
The nRF9160 DK is an affordable, pre-certified single-board development kit for evaluation and development on the nRF9160 SiP for LTE-M, NB-IoT and GNSS. It also includes an nRF52840 board controller that for example can be used to build a Bluetooth Low Energy gateway, which is not tested in this blog. As the following block. In this kit the nRF9160 shall transfer the wifi location result to remote cloud with LTE-M , one SIM card included to cloud access.
The nRF7002 evaluation shield kit
nRF7002 Wi-Fi® companion IC is Dual-band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi 6, Compatible with IEEE 802.11ax (also known as Wi-Fi 6) and earlier standards IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac , with Onboard 2.4/5 GHz antenna,Default Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) to DK
The SSID scan function shall be used in nRF wifi drivier in nRF SDK.
To communicate with the host processor, the nRF7002 EK supports SPI or QSPI interfaces. The unique wireless coexistence support on the nRF70 Series ensures that protocols such as Bluetooth Low Energy, Thread, or Zigbee can seamlessly co-exist with Wi-Fi The nRF7002 is fully integrated into Nordic's nRF Connect SDK,as nRF wifi drivier.nRF Wi-Fi driver (nordicsemi.com) As the block diagram shows. This is how it can work with other nRF chips by connecting the nRF7002 EK to an nRF52840 DK you can evaluate the cost-effective combination of nRF52840 and nRF7002.
3.1 Download and install VS code and nRF connect for desktop, then select nRF SDK to install
open tool manager to install nRF SDK then open installed VS code , but this is legacy nRF SDK installation. That is not well done now.
3.2 Install nRF SDK in VS code extensions. First install selected toolchains
Then install selected nRF SDKs
That nRF SDK after 2.6.0 seems would take too much time and occupy more disk space. The version 2.7.0 is experimental. It takes too much time to find out version 2.5.1 is enough for this roadtest.
3.3 Create sample project and run it. Select right sample project to copy.
Select serial lte modem, and build it
flash the board
The code is based on Zephyr real time OS, go for zephyr website for more APIs
Open putty , select first newly discovered port as 115200bps
Then feedback operation log for this sample project.
4.1 What is Indoor location and position
GPS is well-functional position technology, except at home where the satellite signal is blocked. Location based on LTE signal strength is another choice, but the accuracy is unstable, ranging from 1 meter to several hundred meter. Therefor indoor location based on Wifi SSID is good choice until wifi6 is valid. nRF7002 is flagship chip for this function.
Review with the nRF7002-EK WIFI-6 chipset and the nRF9160- Development Kit together with Nordic Cloud using a Basis SIM card provides only binary code to flash in the nRF160DK.The nRF9160 as host chip, catch SSID value from nRF7002 and porting the result with LTE-M to nRF cloud. That is good indoor location solution but it may not work in Region where SIM card can not provide services. Other interesting solution with nRF 7002 is for MQTT broker Implementing MQTT over Wi-Fi on the nRF7002 Development Kit
4.2 nRF WIFI driver
The nRF wifi driver is important in this solution. The nRF9160 can work with wifi driver as well as nRF7002 DK, the sample code is same for both choice. It can be select with configuration in west command line
west build -b nrf7002dk/nrf5340/cpuapp
or
west build -b nrf5340dk/nrf5340/cpuapp -- -DSHIELD=nrf7002ek
as Sample description in wifi radio test sample
Or go deep for Kconfig
Since nRF70 Series device is a companion IC and can be used with any Nordic Semiconductor System-on-Chips (SoCs), such as the nRF53 and nRF91 Series SoCs. Enable the driver by using the CONFIG_WIFI_NRF700X Kconfig option. The nRF7002 EK driver communicates with the nRF70 Series device using the SPI interface. The driver uses the SPI interface to send commands to the nRF70 Series device, and to transfer data to and from the device. Refer to nRF Wi-Fi driver (nordicsemi.com) , nRF70 Series Wi-Fi layers (nordicsemi.com), and Network APIs — Zephyr Project Documentation
Even the nRF 7002EK can work with other host chip, there shall be more technical detail on how to parse the SPI protocol. This may be included newest version of nRF SDK.
4.3 Next to do
The wifi SSID API may be included in new version of nRF SDK. This road test is based on nRF SDK 2.5.1. Further test shall be make after newer nRF SDK is installed and tested and make it work in new project.
[1]Guide overview for VS code extension
[3] nRF7002 EK - Evaluation kit for nRF70 Series, Wi-Fi 6 companion ICs
[4]nRF9160 DK
[5]nRF Wi-Fi driver (nordicsemi.com)
