Overview

TI’s royalty-free TI 15.4-Stack is a complete software platform for developing applications that require extremely low-power, long-range, reliable, robust and secure wireless star-topology based networking solutions. This chapter explains in detail the different network-configuration modes supported by the TI 15.4-Stack for application development. Useful information is presented for developers using the TI 15.4-Stack for their custom application development, which lets developers quickly understand the basics of the selected configuration mode and develop their end products with ease.

Architecture Choices

TI 15.4-Stack can be used in two separate architectures based on the end product application. Figure 20. shows the two different system architectures enabled by TI 15.4-Stack.

  • A single device is shown in Figure 20. (left). The application and protocol stack are both implemented on the CC13xx or CC26xx as a true single-chip solution. This configuration is the simplest and most common when using the CC13xx or CC26xx for network nodes and also using the CC13xx or CC26xx as a personal area network (PAN) coordinator node. This configuration is the most cost-effective technique and provides the lowest- power performance.

  • A coprocessor is shown in Figure 20. (right). The protocol stack runs on the CC13xx or CC26xx while the application is executed on an external MPU or MCU. The application interfaces with the CC13xx or CC26xx using the network protocol interface (NPI) over a serial universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) connection. The description of the API interface is provided in the TI 15.4-Stack CoP Interface Guide document found in the docs/ti154stack folder of the SDK installation directory. This configuration is useful for applications that must add long-range wireless connectivity or peripheral applications, which execute on another device (such as an external MCU) or on a PC without the requirement to implement the complexities associated with a wireless networking protocol. In these cases, the application can be developed externally on a host processor while running TI 15.4-Stack on the CC13xx or CC26xx, which provides ease of development and quickly adds long-range wireless connectivity to existing products.

../_images/fig-device-configuration.png

Figure 20. Single Device and Coprocessor Configuration

Data Rate and PHY

Data rate and PHY is selected through SysConfig:

  1. (Only dual-band devices) Selecting your frequency band is done by selecting which version of the example you use as a starting point:

    • Sub-1 GHz band: Use the regular examples

    • 2.4 GHz frequency band: Use examples with _2_4g tag. E.g. the collector_2_4g example.

  2. Open SysConfig -> RF STACKS -> TI 15.4-Stack -> Radio

  3. Select your Regulation type. This is the region your product will be used in.

  4. Select your frequency. Please note, available frequencies are restricted by your selected Regulation type. If you can’t find the frequency you want, you may need to select a different Regulation type.

  5. Select your Phy Type. Here you choose your modulation and data rate. Again, the available Phy Types are restricted based on Regulation type. If you can’t find the Phy Type you want, you may need to select a different Regulation type.

../_images/freq_sysconfig.png

Figure 21. Configure frequency and data rate in SysConfig.

PHY Selection in TI 15.4-Stack

The choice of PHY band and data rate is done by setting the appropriate PHY Id in ApiMac_attribute_phyCurrentDescriptorId PIB attribute. The overall options are explained in Table 1..

Attention

When operating TI 15.4-Stack at 2.4 GHz (PHY ID 0) the data-rate is locked at the standard IEEE 802.15.4 data-rate of 250 kbps. Channel count starts at channel 11 for this PHY.

Table 1. TI 15.4-Stack PHY’s and their channel frequencies

PHY ID

PHY Data Rate

Channel 0 Freq

# of Channels

Channel Spacing

0

250 kbps

2405 MHz (ch11)

16

5 MHz

1

50 kbps

902.2 MHz

129

200 kHz

3

50 kbps

863.125 MHz

64

200 kHz

128

50 kbps

433.05 MHz

7

200 kHz

129

5 kbps

902.2 MHz

129

200 kHz

130

5 kbps

433.05 MHz

7

200 kHz

131

5 kbps

863.125 MHz

64

200 kHz

132

200 kbps

902.4 MHz

64

400 kHz

133

200 kbps

863.225 MHz

32

400 kHz

136

200 kbps

920.7 MHz (ch 24, 25)

36

200 kHz