MEASUREMENT AND REPORTING OF RECEIVED SIGNAL STRENGTH IN NFC ENABLED DEVICES

摘要

An NFC-enabled device including tag emulation circuitry and reader emulation circuitry operates so as to provide a signal strength meter function. The signal strength meter function, in tag emulation mode, measures and reports on how well the tag is coupled to a third party reader field. In reader emulation mode, the signal strength meter function measures and reports how well the reader of the NFC-enabled device couples to a tag that is being read. One exemplary method includes detecting an NFC reader field, operating reader receiver circuitry at the NFC-enabled device so as to at least determine the strength of a signal received from the reader field, generating information representative of the determined strength of the signal received from the reader field at a first time, and performing one or more predetermined actions based at least in part on the one or more signals representative of the determined strength. Predetermined actions may include generating visual, audio, and/or other indications of the received signal strength.

主权项

1. An NFC-enabled mobile device, comprising:
a field detector circuit configured to detect an NFC reader field based on a current induced within an antenna of the NFC-enabled mobile device; a receiver circuit configured to wake from a powered-down state in response to detection of the NFC reader field by the field detector, the receiver circuit further configured to generate in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) components of an incoming signal received from the NFC reader field; first circuitry configured to determine a strength of the incoming signal received from the NFC reader field based on the I and Q components generated; second circuitry configured to generate information representative of the determined strength at a first time; and third circuitry configured to generate a first user perceivable output representative of the determined signal strength, the first user perceivable output configured to direct a user to improve the strength of the signal received.