An oscilloscope can be used to measure both the average current over a given time interval and capture the current profile.
Make sure you have followed the instructions in Preparing the nRF7002 EK.
- Mount a 10 Ω resistor between the pins on P6.
- Connect an oscilloscope in differential mode or similar with two probes on the pins of the P6 connector as shown in Current measurement with an oscilloscope.
- Calculate or plot the instantaneous current from the voltage drop across the 10 Ω resistor by taking the difference of the voltages measured on the two probes. The voltage drop is proportional to the current. The 10 Ω resistor causes a 10 mV drop for each 1 mA drawn by the circuit being measured.
The plotted voltage drop can be used to calculate the current at a given point in time. The current can then be averaged or integrated to analyze current and energy consumption over a period.
Figure 1. Current measurement with an oscilloscope
To reduce noise, you can do the following:
- Use probes with 1x attenuation.
- Enable averaging mode to reduce random noise.
- Enable high resolution function if available.
A minimum of one sample every 5 µs is needed to accurately measure the average current.