CC2538DK: RSSI measurement accuracy

Jonathan Geronga

Part Number: CC2538DK

Hi Team,

We have a customer inquiry regarding their plan application for CC2538DK.

They would like to perform localization via RSSI with the ZigBee protocol and found CC2538. They would like to obtain the RSSI measurement between two devices. After that, they will use these measurements to perform trilateration, where I will locate an unknown node's location between three nodes with known locations. They would like to confirm the accuracy of RSSI measurement for a maximum of 60 meters?

Can this provide accurate RSSI readings (within reason, of course, due to environmental factors and such)? Other boards tried by the customer is only accurate up to 5-meter distance between nodes. Please let me know if there are other products better for customer application if CC2538 is not possible.

Thanks!

Jonathan

over 4 years ago

0 TER over 4 years ago

TI__Guru**** 317180 points

Not related to the question, but have you considered CC26xx for zigbee?

The RSSI accuracy is typically around +/- 3 dB, most of the time it will be down to around +/- 1 dB. Not sure how that is linked to meter.

0 Ryan Brown1 over 4 years ago

TI__Guru**** 207087 points

Hi Jonathan,

Does the customer actually require Zigbee mesh/ZCL communication? I would definitely recommend the SIMPLELINK-CC13X2-26X2-SDK over CC253X Z-Stack design. Is the customer aware of the BLE5 RTLS toolbox? http://dev.ti.com/tirex/content/simplelink_cc13x2_26x2_sdk_4_10_00_78/docs/ble5stack/ble_user_guide/html/ble-stack-5.x-guide/localization-index-cc13x2_26x2.html#

Beyond environmental factors already noted, another issue with correlating between distance and RSSI is that it is dependent on the TX output power. You can easily use a CC2592 range extender or CC2652P/CC1352P device to increase range but it is not known how accurate the measurements must be in a stable environment for the customer's application. Here are some E2E threads regarding Z-Stack RSSI if the customer would like to investigate further: https://e2e.ti.com/search?q=rssi&category=forum&group=341

Regards,
Ryan

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CC2538DK: RSSI measurement accuracy