Does STM32WB support Bluetooth AOA (angle of arrival) or AOD (angle of departure)?

[Matthew K]

Hi, I noticed this feature from Bluetooth 5.1.

https://www.bluetooth.com/blog/new-aoa-aod-bluetooth-capabilities/

https://youtu.be/c3XqbEKmNcM

https://youtu.be/jSDtUOQXJmo

"The new Bluetooth direction finding feature supports two methods for determining the direction of a Bluetooth signal, both of which are based on the use of an antenna array: angle of arrival (AoA) and angle of departure (AoD)."

I have recently purchased the P-NUCLEO-WB55 from Digikey

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/stmicroelectronics/P-NUCLEO-WB55/497-18384-ND/9857029

and downloaded the STM32WB CubeMX codes.

However, although STM32WB supports Bluetooth 5, I couldn't find codes related to AOA or AOD.

Are there AOA/AOD examples available for P-NUCLEO-WB55?

Thanks.

[ramkumarkoppu]

It seems, ST has not much interest in supporting their STM32WB for BLE. I am also looking for answers for similar questions in STM32WB community forum and no success yet. I may wait for some more time and if there no support from ST then I may switch to nRF5340 for Nordic has decent support in their community forums.

[ramkumarkoppu]

Hi ST, can you please answer to Matthew’s original question please?

[Remi QUINTIN]

This feature requires an antenna array to be supported, the Nucleo board does not support it as there is only one antenna. So I don't expect any example code in the WB FW package.

[dudacek_t]

There seems to be a slight shift in the product range with BLE AoA support from STM, so for anyone stumbling across here is a short summary -

The WB55 does not seem to support BLE AoA, but:

- the stm32W0x seems to have support for it [1]

- the STEVAL-IDB012V1 mentions it as well [2]

- There seems to be some example code [3]

However – as mentioned, you still need an antenna array for BLE AoA and there seems to be lack of support in this regard. [3] I spoke to a representative at the Embedded world stand this year and they pointed out, that there is (or supposed to be) an example design for the array, but so far, it is available only on request (from your local sales representative if I remember correctly).

Hope this is of any help for anyone!
Thank you and have a great day

Mentioned resources:

[1] https://blog.st.com/stm32wb09-stm32wb05-stm32wb06-stm32wb07-stm32wb05xn/
[2] https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/steval-idb012v1.html#overview
[3] https://community.st.com/t5/stm32-mcus-wireless/questions-regarding-stmicroelectronics-ble-aoa-direction-finding/td-p/763217