If you want to use a BLE or ANT SoftDevice in applications that cannot be ported to nRF5, for example because they use specific peripherals or need more resources like RAM, flash memory, or CPU speed, consider using serialization.
The SDK provides a sample serialization setup consisting of two nRF5 Development boards. One of these boards serves as application board and hosts the actual Bluetooth or ANT application. The other board serves as connectivity board and supplies the radio connection. The application board with an nRF5 chip is provided as a reference only. You will need to port the serialized application to the microcontroller in the target system.
See Serialization for further documentation on serialization.
The sample serialization setup supports two physical transport interfaces for BLE: UART and SPI. For ANT, only UART is supported.
See Figure 1 (nRF52840 PDK) or Figure 2 (nRF52832 DK, nRF51 DK) for an illustration of how to connect two development boards as an application board and a connectivity board supplying a UART connection.
Figure 3 (nRF52840 PDK) and Figure 4 (nRF52832 DK, nRF51 DK) illustrate how to connect two development boards as an application board and a connectivity board supplying an SPI connection.
Shorting SB17/SB43 will connect the reset on the nRF5 chip on the connectivity board with the Arduino RESET signal. Together with the wire between P0.12 (nRF51) or P0.11 (nRF52) on the application board and the RESET on the connectivity board, this makes it possible to reset the connectivity chip from the application CPU.
Figure 5 illustrates how to connect two D52 ANT SoC Modules from Garmin Canada as an application board and a connectivity board supplying a UART connection.
Prepare the connectivity board by performing the following steps:
Physical transport layer | Example location |
---|---|
UART (BLE) | <InstallFolder>\examples\connectivity\ble_connectivity\board\ser_s13x_uart |
SPI | <InstallFolder>\examples\connectivity\ble_connectivity\board\ser_s13x_spi |
HCI (reliable UART) | <InstallFolder>\examples\connectivity\ble_connectivity\board\ser_s13x_hci |
UART (ANT) | <InstallFolder>\examples\connectivity\experimental_ant\board\ser_s212_uart |
UART (ANT & BLE) | <InstallFolder>\examples\connectivity\experimental_ant_ble\board\ser_s332_uart |
The application board does not need a SoftDevice. Prepare the application board by performing the following steps:
ser_s13x_transport
folder. The following serialized examples are available: Example | Physical transport layers |
---|---|
Heart Rate Application | UART, SPI, SPI_5W, HCI |
BLE Heart Rate Collector Example | UART, SPI, SPI_5W, HCI |
Direct Test Mode | UART, SPI, SPI_5W, HCI |
ANT I/O | UART |
ANT and BLE Heart Rate Monitor Relay Application | UARTChoose the example project for the same physical transport layer as on the connectivity board. |
Additional steps for the serialized Direct Test Mode example: