ANT Forum

Hello,

is it allowed for an ANT Adopter to design an ANT(+) device which only consists of a radio chip like nRF24L01 and a microcontroller with the user application code where the whole ANT(+) protocol stack is implemented in the application software?

On thisisant.com I can only find chipsets http://www.thisisant.com/pages/products/chip-based-solutions which are a combination of a radio chip and an ANT protocol controller and I would have to add an additional microcontroller for the user application that will communicate with the ANT controller.      

The ANT protocol stack is proprietary and only available in silicon form, so it is not possible for a 3rd party to implement the stack in their own microcontroller.

Depending on your timelines, you may want to keep an eye out for the nRF51 SoC
http://www.thisisant.com/news/stories/next-generation-ant-apx-featured-in-nordics-nrf51-soc-series      

alejandra wrote:

The ANT protocol stack is proprietary and only available in silicon form, so it is not possible for a 3rd party to implement the stack in their own microcontroller.

Thanks for your response, however it does not completely answer my question. If I know how the data (ANT header, ANT+ stuff and Payload) is communicated through the air then it would be possible to write my own stack to tell the nRF24L01 to send the same information. For getting the required information there are the ANT-Documents and I could overhear the radio transmission. The information about how to communicate with the nRF24L01 is available in its datasheet.

So it would be possible to write my own protocol stack in my own microcontroller which communicates with a nRF24L01 radio chip. Other ANT(+) devices would only receive the radio transmission and wouldn't recognize that they communicate with my own protocol stack on my own microcontroller.

So my question again: Is it allowed to do so or do I have (because of license stuff) to use the ANT chipsets with integrated protocol stuff?      

No, it is not allowed.
As stated before, the ANT protocol stack is proprietary and reverse engineering it is not allowed. You will need to use the silicon solutions available.