WICED Wi-Fi Driver [WWD] controls radio TX power?

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Anonymous
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How can a customer control the TX power of the radio?

Is this part of the WICED Wi-Fi Driver?

Given PA power dominates power draw during transmit, for battery powered applications adjusting TX power can increase battery life.

Ive looked for TX Power control and related [e.g. RSSI] in WICED/SDK, but havent found much.

Thanks,

Phil
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5 Replies
Anonymous
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How about wiced_wifi_set_tx_power() ?
Anonymous
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Thank you!    🙂
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Anonymous
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Phil, unless your app transmits a metric shedload, receive dominates power consumption by a loooooong way, NOT transmit.

Power consumption is all about "integrating the area under the curve"

Energy to transmit a 1ms packet at 350mW = 350uJ

Energy to run a receiver for 1s at 60mW = 60mJ

Make sense?

Plus, the power saved by dropping RF Tx power is not net necessarily that much.

It depends on the class of power amplifier used.
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Anonymous
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Jason, thanks for that last reply.  It is VERY helpful.

Ive got a customer using WICED as follows.

1.  WICED is in AP mode

2.  WICED TXs a 4 byte packet to STA

3.  WICED RXs a 540 byte packet from STA.

Steps 2 & 3 repeat so long as the WICED radio is on.  This mode dominates the use case.  The radio never TXs more than 4 bytes.  The radio never RXs more than 540 byte packets.

[ratio of TX to RX is 1 to 135 ]

The thought was that given the TX is 7x the RX that turning down the power would help.  [Generally the two radios are close - at arms length literally.]

Ignoring whatever the WICED needs to do in STA mode, the use case mirrors what you mention i.e. RX dominates.

The current solution [K60 + AR6103] has average power of 58 mA @ 3.3v.  The customers goal is 1/3 better i.e. 38 mA.

Most of the means to save power assume radio is STA arent they [i.e. sleep.]  Given the above use case, please suggest current saving techniques.  If these can be easily demonstrated to the customer, all the better.

Thanks,

Phil
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Anonymous
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There is no general powersaving techniques for an Access Point unfortunately.

The AP receiver must remain on permanently to receive packets asynchronously from associated clients.

The Wi-Fi Direct standard provides some powersaving techniques for a Wi-Fi Direct Group Owner.

These are not currently implemented in WICED.
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