Investigation on the Susceptibility of BLE Receivers to Power Switching Noise

In this paper Radio Frequency transceivers operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band are analyzed and tested. Electromagnetic interference collected by antennas can propagate in the receiver front-end causing communication errors. Therefore, the parasitic coupling between PCB printed antenna and an interference source is discussed through simulations and a lumped-element equivalent circuit is proposed. The main causes of errors induced by low-frequency electromagnetic interference are analyzed referring to two different front-end integrated circuits. The low noise amplifier is considered responsible for communication errors. The susceptibility of the receiver to EMI is evaluated by injecting low-frequency interfering waveforms in the receiver front-end once the wireless communication is established. The susceptibility criteria used are the packet error rate and the number of packets lost. Vulnerability to low-frequency interference was found. Some practical design guidelines are discussed for systems incorporating both RF transceiver and power switching circuits.