uBit.

radio

Overview
The central processor unit (CPU) on the micro:bit is a Nordic Semiconductor nRF51822
(../../resources/datasheets/nRF51822.pdf). In addition to being a general purpose computer processor,
this chip also contains a built-in 2.4GHz radio module. This radio can be con gured in a number of
ways, and is primarily designed to run the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol. However, it can also be
placed into a much simpler mode of operation based that allows simple, direct micro:bit to micro:bit
communication.

The MicroBitRadio component is made up of three classes - MicroBitRadio , MicroBitRadioEvent

(../radioevent/) and MicroBitRadioDatagram (../radiodatagram/). Together, these provide the ability to
send general purpose data packets from one micro:bit to another, and to extend a message bus to
span multiple micro:bits... so if you raise an event on one micro:bit, you can receive it on another using
the normal listen (../messageBus/) mechanism!

Note

It is not currently possible to run the MicroBitRadio component and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
at the same time. If you want to use the MicroBitRadio functionality, you need to disable the BLE
stack on your micro:bit by compiling the runtime with #define MICROBIT_BLE_ENABLED 0 in your
inc/MicroBitConfig.h le.

Capabilities
This component provides a very easy to use, exible, broadcast radio channel. Anything you send from
one micro:bit, can be received by any other micro:bits nearby. It is designed to provide a powerful but
simple introduction to the world of wireless communications, and can let you create a whole range of
applications from building your own friend detectors to creating remote control cars.

A key principle of this component is privacy, which is built in from the ground up. So, when you send
any data, there is nothing inherent in this protocol which can be used to identify you or your micro:bit.
All devices look identical. Therefore, if you want to be able to identify yourself, you need to add this to
your own data.

Capability Brief Description

Frequency 1MHz narrowband, typically 2.407 GHz. Use con gurable in the 2.400 GHz - 2.499 GHz band.

Channel Rate 1Mbps.

Maximum Transfer Unit Typically 32 bytes, but recon gurable in code up to 1024 bytes.

Addressing All devices share the same address to guarantee user privacy.

Encryption None. User level encryption (or BLE) should be considered if secture channels are required.

Meshing None. (yet!)

Error Detection 16 bit hardware CRC.

Transmisson Power Eight user con gurable settings from 0 (-30dbm) to 7 (+4dbm).

Transmisson Range Approx. 20m at 0dbm.

Using MicroBitRadio
To write your radio enabled applications, you will likely want to use either the MicroBitRadioDatagram
(../radiodatagram/) class, or the MicroBitRadioEvent (../radioevent/) class.

Both of these are created for you as part of the standard uBit object, so this is a choice, not a
compromise! :-)
MicroBitRadioDatagram (../radiodatagram/)
This is the most exible way to use the radio, and lets you easily send and receive up to 32 bytes of
data at a time. This data can be provided as array of bytes, a text string, or PacketBuffer (../../data-
types/packetbu er/).

You can send a packet at any time using the uBit.radio.datagram.send function.

Any other micro:bits in range will detect the transmitted packet, and make the packet available through
the uBit.radio.datagram.recv function.

Any micro:bits receiving a datagram packet will also raise a MICROBIT_RADIO_EVT_DATAGRAM event to
indicate that some data is ready to be read.

For example, imagine you were creating a simple remote control car with one micro:bit acting as a
remote controller, and another connected to some servos on the car.

You might decide that simply sending a 1 means turn left, and a 2 means turn right, so you may write
a program like this for the remote control:

#include "MicroBit.h"

MicroBit uBit;

int main()
{
uBit.init();
uBit.radio.enable();

while(1)
{
if (uBit.buttonA.isPressed())
uBit.radio.datagram.send("1");

else if (uBit.buttonB.isPressed())
uBit.radio.datagram.send("2");

uBit.sleep(100);
}
}

...and one like this for the remote control car:

 #include "MicroBit.h"

MicroBit uBit;

void onData(MicroBitEvent e)
{
ManagedString s = uBit.radio.datagram.recv();

if (s == "1")
{
uBit.io.P0.setServoValue(0);
uBit.display.print("A");
}

if (s == "2")
{
uBit.io.P0.setServoValue(180);
uBit.display.print("B");
}
}

int main()
{
uBit.init();
uBit.messageBus.listen(MICROBIT_ID_RADIO, MICROBIT_RADIO_EVT_DATAGRAM, onData);
uBit.radio.enable();

while(1)
uBit.sleep(1000);
}

Using PacketBu ers

If you prefer to send a raw series of bytes rather than a text string (which is much more common in
communication networks), you can use the PacketBuffer (../../data-types/packetbu er/) type. This
gives total freedom over the data being shared. Simply create a PacketBuffer (../../data-
types/packetbu er/) of the size you need, and you can read or write data using standard C array
syntax.

For example, here is an similar program using a PacketBuffer (../../data-types/packetbu er/):

 #include "MicroBit.h"

MicroBit uBit;

int main()
{
uBit.init();
uBit.radio.enable();

// Create a packet containing just a single byte.

PacketBuffer b(1);

while(1)
{
b[0] = 0;
if (uBit.buttonA.isPressed())
b[0] = 1;

else if (uBit.buttonB.isPressed())
b[0] = 2;

uBit.radio.datagram.send(b);
uBit.sleep(100);
}
}

...and one like this for the remote control car:

 #include "MicroBit.h"

MicroBit uBit;

void onData(MicroBitEvent e)
{
PacketBuffer p = uBit.radio.datagram.recv();

if (p[0] == 1)
{
uBit.io.P0.setServoValue(0);
uBit.display.print("A");
}

if (p[0] == 2)
{
uBit.io.P0.setServoValue(180);
uBit.display.print("B");
}
}

int main()
{
uBit.init();
uBit.messageBus.listen(MICROBIT_ID_RADIO, MICROBIT_RADIO_EVT_DATAGRAM, onData);
uBit.radio.enable();

while(1)
uBit.sleep(1000);
}

MicroBitRadioEvent (../radioevent/)
It is also possible to transparently send and receive events over the MicroBitRadio channel. This can
provide very simple and easy to integrate support for event driven applications. Once con gured, an
event raised on one micro:bit can be detected on another - in the just the same way as a local event
such as a button click.

To use this functionality, all that is needed is to register the event codes that you would like to be sent
over the radio, then write event handlers for the message bus as with all other events. See the
documentation for the MicroBitMessageBus (../messageBus/) for details of how to write event handlers.
For example, if you wanted to share an event SOMETHING with another micro:bit whenever ButtonA is
pressed, you might write code like this on the sending micro:bit:

#include "MicroBit.h"

MicroBit uBit;

#define MY_APP_ID 4000

#define SOMETHING 1

int main()
{
uBit.init();
uBit.radio.enable();

// Ensure the radio is listening out to forward our events

uBit.radio.event.listen(MY_APP_ID, MICROBIT_EVT_ANY);

// Just for varierty, this time we'll periodically check to see if a button if pressed
// We can, of course, use an event handler for this too.
while(1)
{
if (uBit.buttonA.isPressed())
MicroBitEvent(MY_APP_ID, SOMETHING);

uBit.sleep(100);
}
}

...and on the micro:bits wanting to receive the event:

 #include "MicroBit.h"

MicroBit uBit;

#define MY_APP_ID 4000

#define SOMETHING 1

void onSomething(MicroBitEvent e)
{
uBit.display.scrollAsync("Something!");
}

int main()
{
uBit.init();
uBit.messageBus.listen(MY_APP_ID, SOMETHING, onSomething);
uBit.radio.enable();

while(1)
uBit.sleep(1000);
}

De ning Groups
It is easy to imagine situations where you would like to have di erent groups of micro:bits
communicating independently.

For example, consider a classroom where 8 groups of four children are working on di erent projects -
it would not be very useful if packets sent by one group interfered with the other groups!

To address this, the MicroBitRadio allows users to de ne a group to which their micro:bit belongs.

micro:bits can only ever be a member of one group at a time, and any packets sent will only be
received by other micro:bits in the same group.

Groups are simply numbers, and a micro:bit's group can be set at anytime by the programmer through
the setGroup function. If a group is not speci ed, the default group of 0 will be used.

For example:
 #include "MicroBit.h"

MicroBit uBit;

int main()
{
uBit.init();
uBit.radio.setGroup(10);
}

Message Bus ID
Constant Value

MICROBIT_ID_RADIO 29

MICROBIT_ID_RADIO_DATA_READY 30

Message Bus Events

Constant Value

MICROBIT_RADIO_EVT_DATAGRAM 1

API

Constructor
MicroBitRadio()
Description
Constructor.

Initialise the MicroBitRadio .

Note

This class is demand activated, as a result most resources are only committed if send/recv or
event registrations calls are made.

MicroBitRadio( uint16_t id)

Description
Constructor.

Initialise the MicroBitRadio .

Parameters

uint16_t id

Note

This class is demand activated, as a result most resources are only committed if send/recv or
event registrations calls are made.

setTransmitPower
int setTransmitPower( int power)
Description
Change the output power level of the transmitter to the given value.

Parameters

int power - a value in the range 0..7, where 0 is the lowest power and 7 is the highest.

Returns
MICROBIT_OK on success, or MICROBIT_INVALID_PARAMETER if the value is out of range.

setFrequencyBand

int setFrequencyBand( int band)

Description
Change the transmission and reception band of the radio to the given channel

Parameters

int band - a frequency band in the range 0 - 100. Each step is 1MHz wide, based at 2400MHz.

Returns
MICROBIT_OK on success, or MICROBIT_INVALID_PARAMETER if the value is out of range, or
MICROBIT_NOT_SUPPORTED if the BLE stack is running.
getRxBuf

FrameBu er getRxBuf()
Description
Retrieve a pointer to the currently allocated receive bu er. This is the area of memory actively being
used by the radio hardware to store incoming data.

Returns
a pointer to the current receive bu er.

queueRxBuf

int queueRxBuf()
Description
Attempt to queue a bu er received by the radio hardware, if su cient space is available.

Returns
MICROBIT_OK on success, or MICROBIT_NO_RESOURCES if a replacement receiver bu er could not be
allocated (either by policy or memory exhaustion).

setRSSI

int setRSSI( uint8_t rssi)

Description
Sets the RSSI for the most recent packet.

Parameters

uint8_t rssi - the new rssi value.

Note

should only be called from RADIO_IRQHandler...

getRSSI

int getRSSI()
Description
Retrieves the current RSSI for the most recent packet.

Returns
the most recent RSSI value or MICROBIT_NOT_SUPPORTED if the BLE stack is running.

enable

int enable()
Description
Initialises the radio for use as a multipoint sender/receiver

Returns
MICROBIT_OK on success, MICROBIT_NOT_SUPPORTED if the BLE stack is running.

disable

int disable()
Description
Disables the radio for use as a multipoint sender/receiver.

Returns
MICROBIT_OK on success, MICROBIT_NOT_SUPPORTED if the BLE stack is running.

setGroup

int setGroup( uint8_t group)

Description
Sets the radio to listen to packets sent with the given group id.

Parameters

uint8_t group - The group to join. A micro:bit can only listen to one group ID at any time.

Returns
MICROBIT_OK on success, or MICROBIT_NOT_SUPPORTED if the BLE stack is running.

dataReady

int dataReady()
Description
Determines the number of packets ready to be processed.

Returns
The number of packets in the receive bu er.

recv

FrameBu er recv()
Description
Retrieves the next packet from the receive bu er. If a data packet is available, then it will be returned
immediately to the caller. This call will also dequeue the bu er.

Returns
The bu er containing the the packet. If no data is available, NULL is returned.

Note

Once recv() has been called, it is the callers responsibility to delete the bu er when appropriate.
send

int send( FrameBu er * bu er)

Description
Transmits the given bu er onto the broadcast radio. The call will wait until the transmission of the
packet has completed before returning.

Parameters

FrameBu er * bu er

Returns
MICROBIT_OK on success, or MICROBIT_NOT_SUPPORTED if the BLE stack is running.

(https://www.lancaster.ac.uk)

DAL Version v2.1.1

Documentation built with MkDocs (http://www.mkdocs.org/).