Wireless RF communication using nRF24L01 module

Jacktang

Wireless RF communication using nRF24L01 module [Copy link]

Designers use many wireless communication systems such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE 4.0), Zigbee, ESP8266 Wi-Fi modules, 433MHz RF modules, Lora, nRF, etc. The choice of transmission medium depends on the type of application it is used in. One of the popular wireless communication for local network communication is nRF24L01. These modules operate at 2.4GHz (ISM band) with baud rates from 250Kbps to 2Mbps, which is legal in many countries and can be used in industrial and medical applications. With a proper antenna, these modules can send and receive signals up to 100 meters between them.

Use nRF24L01-2.4GHz RF transceiver module to establish wireless communication with Arduino UNO and Raspberry Pi. Raspberry pi will act as a transmitter and Arduino Uno will listen to Raspberry Pi and print the message sent by Raspberry Pi on 16x2 LCD using nRF24L01. nRF24L01 also has built-in BLE function and can also use BLE for wireless communication.

The first part will cover interfacing the nRF24L01 with Arduino as a receiver and the second part will cover interfacing the nRF24L01 with Raspberry Pi as a transmitter.

nRF24L01 RF Module
nRF24L01 modules are transceiver modules, which means each module can send and receive data, but since they are half-duplex, they can either send or receive data at a time. This module uses the generic nRF24L01 from Nordic Semiconductor, which is responsible for both transmission and reception of data. The IC uses the SPI protocol for communication, so it can be easily interfaced with any microcontroller. This can be easily implemented using Arduino, as libraries are readily available. The pinout of a standard nRF24L01 module is shown below

The module operates at 1.9V to 3.6V (typically 3.3V) and consumes only 12mA of current during normal operation, which makes it battery efficient, so it can even run on a coin cell battery. Even though the operating voltage is 3.3V, most of the pins are 5V tolerant, so it can be directly connected with 5V microcontrollers such as Arduino. Another advantage of using these modules is that each module has 6 pipes. Meaning, each module can communicate with 6 other modules to transmit or receive data. This makes this module suitable for creating a star or mesh network in IoT applications. They also have a wide address range of 125 unique IDs, so in a closed area, we can use 125 of these modules without interfering with each other.