What is NearLink?
NearLink is a wireless short-distance communication technology announced by Huawei at the Honor 20 mobile phone launch conference in London, UK on May 21, 2019. It is also called NearLink. Its basic principle is to convert a digital signal, such as CDMA or GSM, into an electromagnetic wave that can be propagated in the outer space. Unlike terrestrial broadcast signals, electromagnetic waves in the outer space can pass through the atmosphere, which means that the signal can be propagated in the sky, and the propagation is more stable and rapid.
As a full-stack original new-generation short-distance communication technology, NearLink has excellent technical features such as low latency, high reliability, high synchronization accuracy, support for multiple concurrency, high information security and low power consumption. Air interface access layer technology is the core of the Star Flash wireless communication system.
According to the different roles of the Nearlink access layer, Nearlink equipment is divided into G (Grant) nodes and T (Terminal) nodes. Each G node can manage a certain number of T nodes. The G node and the T nodes connected to it together form a communication domain. Furthermore, in order to meet the communication needs in different scenarios, Nearlink technology provides two wireless communication interfaces: SLB (SparkLink Basic, Nearlink basic access technology) and SLE (SparkLink Low Energy, Nearlink low power access technology). .
Technical features of the Nearlink system
Low power consumption
Nearlink technology adopts an efficient power consumption management strategy, which allows the device to significantly reduce power consumption in standby or low-load states, thereby extending the service life of the device.
Low latency
The transmission delay of Nearlink technology is very low, which makes it very suitable for application scenarios that require real-time performance, such as online games, real-time audio and video communication, etc.
High rate
In other words, since it is equipped with low latency, it must have a high transmission rate, which is much higher than traditional Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technologies. This allows it to meet the needs of large data transmission, such as high-definition video streaming, large file transmission, etc.
High reliability
In the daily data or information transmission process, Nearlink technology has strong anti-interference ability and can maintain a stable connection in a complex electromagnetic environment. In addition, it supports simultaneous connection of multiple devices, providing greater flexibility.
The specific performance indicators are as follows:
| Project | SLB Performance Specifications | SLE Performance Indicators |
| Peak rate | G link peak is greater than 900Mbps (single carrier 20MHz bandwidth), T link peak is greater than 450Mbps (single carrier 20MHz bandwidth) | Supports 4.6Mbps high-fidelity stereo lossless audio and 12Mbps data transmission |
| Latency | 20us | Supports 250us to complete an interaction |
| Multi-user capability | Supports 4096 users to access | Supports 256 users to access |
| Security | High (two-way authentication, algorithm coordination guarantee) | High |
| Network coverage and topology | - | Minimum SINR: -3dB, supports one-to-one unicast and one-to-many multicast |
| Anti-interference capability | Polar data channel coding, minimum working signal-to-noise ratio -5dB (compared to traditional short-distance coverage gain +3dB) | — |
| Reliability | Accuracy greater than 99.999% | — |
SLB is mainly used in scenarios such as industrial machinery control, vehicle-mounted active noise reduction, and wireless screen projection; while SLE is used in scenarios with low power consumption requirements such as headphone audio transmission, industrial data collection, and wireless battery management. Both have their own strengths. , complement each other.
Currently, Nearlink technology is benchmarked against Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, which are both short-range wireless communication technologies. Bluetooth focuses on low power consumption, and Wi-Fi pursues high speeds. Nearlink access layer SLB and SLE combine low power consumption and High speed features combined.
| Application areas | Bluetooth 5.3 | Wi-Fi 7 | Nearlink |
| Connection rate | 24Mbps | 146~172Mbps (Wi-Fi 7, 20MHz bandwidth) 46.1Gbps (theoretical peak, 320MHz) | More than 900Mbps (20MHz bandwidth) |
| Delay | 15-20ms (private protocol) | Sms | 0.02ms (SLB) |
| Maximum number of connections | 8 | 256 | 256 (SLE) 4096 (SLB) |
| Communication distance | About 20-300 meters, about 10 meters indoors | About 50-300 meters | About 600 meters, twice that of Bluetooth |
| Power consumption | Bluetooth BLE 30mW | Generally within 50mW in China | Star Flash SLE 10mW |
| Reliability | Poor | General | Good |
| Security | Poor | Good | Good |
Nearlink technology has a wide range of current application prospects, including smart homes, smart cars, smart terminals and smart manufacturing. For example, in smart homes, Nearlink technology can realize fast and stable connections and data interactions between various smart devices; in smart cars, Nearlink technology can realize high-speed, low-latency data transmission between vehicles and external devices. communication to improve the safety and efficiency of autonomous driving.
Part of the content and opinions of the above article are derived from the "White Paper on Industrialization Promotion of Star Flash Wireless Short-range Communication Technology (SparkLink 1.0)". We are in an era of digital information explosion, with high demands on transmission rate, transmission distance, reliability, delay, etc. The birth of star flash technology has undoubtedly provided great help to our lives and work.