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Bluetooth LE Waveform Generation and Visualization

This example shows you how to generate and visualize Bluetooth® low energy (LE) waveforms for different physical layer (PHY) modes by using Bluetooth® Toolbox [ 2 ].

Background

Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) introduced Bluetooth LE for low power short range communications. Bluetooth LE devices operate in the globally unlicensed industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band in the frequency range 2.4 GHz to 2.485 GHz. Bluetooth LE specifies a channel spacing of 2 MHz, which results in 40 RF channels as shown in the figure below. The Bluetooth LE standard [ 2 ] specifies the Link layer which includes both PHY and MAC layers. Bluetooth LE 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 [ 2 ] 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 Bluetooth LE 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 Bluetooth LE waveforms for all the physical layer modes as per the Bluetooth specification [ 2 ]. The generated Bluetooth LE waveforms are visualized in both time-domain and frequency-domain using time scope and spectrum analyzer respectively.

Initialize Parameters for Waveform Generation

% Specify the input parameters for generating Bluetooth LE 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

specAn = spectrumAnalyzer('Method','welch', ...
    'SpectrumType','Power density', ...
    '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 Bluetooth LE waveform and
% plotting the waveform spectrum
rng default;
for packetIdx = 1:numPackets
    message = randi([0 1],messageLen,1);    % Message bits generation
    channelIndex = randi([0 39],1,1);          % Channel index decimal value

    if(channelIndex >=37)
        % Default access address for periodic advertising channels
        accessAddress = [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.
        accessAddress = [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',channelIndex,...
        'AccessAddress',accessAddress);

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

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

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

Selected Bibliography

  1. Bluetooth Technology Website | The Official Website of Bluetooth Technology, Accessed November 22, 2021. https://www.bluetooth.com.

  2. Volume 6 of the Bluetooth Core Specification, Version 5.3 Core System Package [Low Energy Controller Volume].

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