Bluetooth Low Energy Waveform Generation and Visualization

This example uses:

Communications Toolbox Library for the Bluetooth Protocol Communications Toolbox Library for the Bluetooth Protocol

This example shows how the Communications Toolbox™ Library for the Bluetooth® Protocol can be used to generate waveforms for different modes of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) physical layer (PHY) [ 1 ].

Background

Bluetooth special interest group (SIG) introduced BLE for low power short range communications. BLE devices operate in the globally unlicensed industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band in the frequency range 2.4 GHz to 2.485 GHz. BLE specifies a channel spacing of 2 MHz, which results in 40 RF channels as shown in the figure below. The BLE standard [ 1 ] specifies the Link layer which includes both PHY and MAC layers. BLE finds applications in transfer of files such as images and MP3 between mobile phones, home automation and internet of things (IoT) trend.

The Bluetooth standard [ 1 ] specifies the following physical layer modes:

LE1M - Uncoded PHY with data rate of 1 Mbps
LE2M - Uncoded PHY with data rate of 2 Mbps
LE500K - Coded PHY with data rate of 500 Kbps
LE125K - Coded PHY with data rate of 125 Kbps

The air interface packet formats for these modes include the following fields:

Preamble: The preamble depends on which PHY mode is used. LE1M mode uses an 8-bit sequence of alternate zeros and ones, '01010101'. LE2M uses a 16-bit sequence of alternate zeros and ones, '0101...'. LE500K and LE125K modes use an 80-bit sequence of zeros and ones obtained by repeating '00111100' ten times.
Access Address: Specifies the connection address shared between two BLE devices using a 32-bit sequence.
Coding Indicator: 2-bit sequence used for differentiating two coded modes (LE125K, LE500K).
Payload: Input message bits including both PDU and CRC. The maximum message size is 2080 bits.
Termination Fields: Two 3-bit vectors of zeros, used in Forward Error Correction encoding. The termination fields are present for coded modes (LE500K and LE125K) only.

Packet format for uncoded PHY (LE1M and LE2M) modes is shown in the figure below:

Packet format for coded PHY (LE500K and LE125K) modes is shown in the figure below:

Introduction

This example shows how to generate BLE waveforms for all the physical layer modes as per the Bluetooth specification [ 1 ]. The generated BLE waveforms are visualized in both time-domain and frequency-domain using time scope and spectrum analyzer respectively.

Check for Support Package Installation

% Check if the 'Communications Toolbox Library for the Bluetooth Protocol'
% support package is installed or not.
commSupportPackageCheck('BLUETOOTH');

Initialize Parameters for Waveform Generation

% Specify the input parameters for generating BLE waveform
numPackets = 10;    % Number of packets to generate
sps = 16;           % Samples per symbol
messageLen = 2000;  % Length of message in bits
phyMode = 'LE1M';   % Select one mode from the set {'LE1M','LE2M','LE500K','LE125K'};
channelBW = 2e6;    % Channel spacing (Hz) as per standard
% Define symbol rate based on the PHY mode
if any(strcmp(phyMode,{'LE1M','LE500K','LE125K'}))
    symbolRate = 1e6;
else
    symbolRate = 2e6;
end

Create Objects for Visualization

% Create a spectrum analyzer object
specAn = dsp.SpectrumAnalyzer('SpectrumType','Power density');
specAn.SampleRate = symbolRate*sps;

% Create a time scope object
timeScope = timescope('SampleRate', symbolRate*sps,'TimeSpanSource','Auto',...
     'ShowLegend',true);

Waveform Generation and Visualization

% Loop over the number of packets, generating a BLE waveform and plotting
% the waveform spectrum
rng default;
for packetIdx = 1:numPackets
    message = randi([0 1],messageLen,1);    % Message bits generation
    chanIndex = randi([0 39],1,1);          % Channel index decimal value

    if(chanIndex >=37)
        % Default access address for periodic advertising channels
        accessAdd = [0 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 ...
                            1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1]';
    else
        % Random access address for data channels
        % Ideally, this access address value should meet the requirements
        % specified in Section 2.1.2 of volume 6 of the Bluetooth Core
        % Specification.
        accessAdd = [0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 ...
            0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1]';
    end

    waveform = bleWaveformGenerator(message,...
                                    'Mode',phyMode,...
                                    'SamplesPerSymbol',sps,...
                                    'ChannelIndex',chanIndex,...
                                    'AccessAddress',accessAdd);

    specAn.FrequencyOffset = channelBW*chanIndex;
    specAn.Title = ['Spectrum of ',phyMode,' Waveform for Channel Index = ', num2str(chanIndex)];

    tic
    while toc < 0.5 % To hold the spectrum for 0.5 seconds
        specAn(waveform);
    end

    % Plot the generated waveform
    timeScope.Title = ['BLE ',phyMode,' Waveform for Channel Index = ', num2str(chanIndex)];
    timeScope(waveform);
end

% Release objects
release(specAn);
release(timeScope);