On the Power Consumption of a Bluetooth Device Operating in Beacon Mode

Indoor tracking solutions of objects and people have gained significant interest in different scenarios and for a wide range of applications. On one end, the ability to detect and locate moving objects is a plus. On the other end, the amount of energy needed to power the tags poses some limitations to its operation. Moreover, as energy harvesting solutions are not always suited, the tags are usually powered by batteries, thus needing recharge or replacement. Therefore, monitoring and estimation of the energy consumption of the tags are required to operate correctly. This contribution presents an experimental setup and methodology to collect data on energy consumption of the tag, using Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth 5.0) for different operation modes, namely the transmission power and the data rate. This methodology allows the estimation of energy needs according to the requirements and adopts energy-saving strategies. The experimental setup uses the Silicon Labs EFR32BG13 family and performs energy measurements via the Simplicity Studio 5 Energy Profiler and the X-NUCLEO-LPM01A board for comparison purposes. The results obtained are presented and discussed.