WL12xx Wifi Direct P2P GO opportunistic power save protocol

Thanks.

So with the WL1271L, when in "Soft Access Point" mode, the WL1271 is (mainly?) in Rx mode between beacons.  

But with the "default_conf" stting in drivers/net/wireless/wl12xx/main.c, it is in CONF_SG_PROTECTIVE mode, i.e. it shares the antenna between WiFi and Bluetooth, by switching back and forth I presume?

I'm having failures with incoming BT connections when WiFi is in "Soft Access Point" mode, so I would like to give more priority to BT in this state.  Is there a CONF_SG_xxx setting for this?

Hi,

Wilink6 supports WLAn and BT coex and this feature was optimized over years. The mechanism gives the BT higher priority and can't be modified by the customer. 

Do you also use the multi-roll feature or you keep working in single role.

What is the driver version you are using?

Regards,

Eran

I'm using the drivers directly from the TI SDK 6.00 release, which is reports in dmesg:

wl12xx: driver version: ol_R5.SP4.01-dirty

wl12xx: compilation time: Tue Jun 25 16:44:08 2013

wl12xx: firmware booted (Rev 6.3.10.0.135)

The WiFi is single role (i.e. Soft AP using hostapd), but we also want to be able to accept incoming BT connections from another device that connects to our product.  These incoming BT connection work find when WiFi is off.  They also work fine when WiFi is in station mode.  But frequently the BT connection fails to connect part way through the BT connection process when the WiFi is in Soft AP mode.

Hi,

in AP mode the WLAN needs to transmit beacons every 100msec which is more critical than station that can loss beacons from time to time. 

Do you see the issue  while BT uses eSCO?

regards,

Eran

We're only using ACL mode in our application (i.e. first SDP for service discovery protocol during the connection sequence, and SPP for serial port profile for transferring data once connected).  

If I turn off WiFi Soft AP, then I can make the BT connection is OK.  Then if I turn on the WiFi Soft AP while the BT is connected (ACL / SPP mode), the connection is fine.

Sorry, but I can't test SCO (voice).

Thank you for sharing that.

We see good coex performance in BT while WLAN is in AP mode. Can you please share the platform you are using, OS, HW module and SW?

thanks

Eran

We did testing on two platforms:

1) The AM335x EVM board with an RF module, which is the LSR TiWi-BLE (WL1271L) on a COM6L-BLE board.

2) Our custom board based on the BeagleBone white, with the same LSR TiWi-BLE module.

The same results were seen on both platforms.

The software platform is Linux TI-SDK 6.00, and we used the pre-built BT and WiFi kernel modules and utilities that come with the SDK.

Thank you again for sharing that.

you may find attached the performance that we see with AM335 SDK6.0 R5.SP3 release and TI WL6 reference EVB.

the performance in AP mode is similar to station.

can you please share the WLAN driver you are using and also the BT BTS file?

regards,

Eran3806.Wilink6_coex.docx

I'm using a BTS from LSR (filename: 480-0025.bts), and the WiFi firmware is as per the TI SDK 6.

But I think the problem is partly due to the Bluetooth module in the device which is connecting to our product, which is a BlueRadios C40 module:  http://www.blueradios.com/BR-C40.pdf

I think this the problem because I don't see the problem when I test a BT connect from a PC running Ubuntu while WiFi is on in the WL12xx.

When I use hcidump on the am335x, I can see the BT connection failures from the C40 BT module, e.g. see below hcidump messages "Instant Passed" and "LMP Response Timeout".  But the C40 module connects fine when Wifi is turned off in the WL12xx.  So perhaps the C40 is sensitive to some BT packet loss or latency in the WL12xx.

Thanks for all your help.

> HCI Event: Connect Request (0x04) plen 10
bdaddr 00:A0:96:35:4E:EB class 0x000000 type ACL
< HCI Command: Accept Connection Request (0x01|0x0009) plen 7
bdaddr 00:A0:96:35:4E:EB role 0x00
Role: Master
> HCI Event: Command Status (0x0f) plen 4
Accept Connection Request (0x01|0x0009) status 0x00 ncmd 1
> HCI Event: Role Change (0x12) plen 8
status 0x28 bdaddr 00:A0:96:35:4E:EB role 0x01
Error: Instant Passed
> HCI Event: Connect Complete (0x03) plen 11
status 0x00 handle 1 bdaddr 00:A0:96:35:4E:EB type ACL encrypt 0x00
< HCI Command: Read Remote Supported Features (0x01|0x001b) plen 2
handle 1
> HCI Event: Page Scan Repetition Mode Change (0x20) plen 7
bdaddr 00:A0:96:35:4E:EB mode 1
> HCI Event: Command Status (0x0f) plen 4
Read Remote Supported Features (0x01|0x001b) status 0x00 ncmd 1

again...

> HCI Event: Connect Request (0x04) plen 10
bdaddr 00:A0:96:35:4E:EB class 0x000000 type ACL
< HCI Command: Accept Connection Request (0x01|0x0009) plen 7
bdaddr 00:A0:96:35:4E:EB role 0x00
Role: Master
> HCI Event: Command Status (0x0f) plen 4
Accept Connection Request (0x01|0x0009) status 0x00 ncmd 1
HCI Event: Connec1
status 0x22 handle 1 bdaddr 00:A0:96:35:4E:EB type ACL encrypt 0x00
Error: LMP Response Timeout

Hi,

thank you again for sharing the data. I just realized that you are using TI WiFi and another vendor BT chip-set. is that correct?

If this is the case, then there is no coex mechanism between the WiFi and the BT. Why not using WIlink6 BT?

Regards,

Eran

No, we're using the LSR TiWi-BLE for both BT and WiFi in our primary product "A" (i.e. and use co-exist).

But the BT in the LSR TiWi-BLE in our primary product is communicating with another device "B" (which we also happen to make), and which has a BlueRadios C40 module in it.  Device "B" connects over BT to device "A".

Thanks for all your help and patience.

Hi,

I understand. Can you check that with more BT device (B) to see if this issue happens only with BlueRadio?

Thanks

Eran 

Ok.

I've tested another BT "B" device, instead of the "B" device with the BlueRadio BT module.

When I use a desktop PC running Ubuntu natively, with an external USB BT dongle (i.e. acting as the "B" device), I can successfully connect via BT to the WL1271L ("A" device) while it is SoftAP mode.

So I guess the issue is related to a specific compatibility problem between the BlueRadio C40 BT module (device "B") and the WL1271L module (device "A"), which occurs in this particular use case (i.e. when in Soft AP mode).

Thanks.