Trigger Alarm: A Smart NFC Sniffer for High-Precision Measurements

In this paper, we present a new design and proof of concept of a smart Near Field Communication (NFC) sniffer, including special trigger features for high-precision measurements during NFC interoperability testing. Even though interoperability testing is not mandatory for successful NFC-device certification, the fast increasing amount of electronic consumer devices providing NFC functionality strongly increases the need for interoperability testing. Nowadays, used automated interoperability test systems require time-consuming and expensive manual debug sessions in case of a communication error, to compensate missing test data for analyzing the failure root cause. To highly decrease costs and time required to perform these manual measurements, we developed a proof of concept of a sniffer tool providing intelligent trigger functionalities. It supports the test engineer during manual debug session and can be integrated into a fully automated interoperability test and analysis system. Hence, we drive the development of automated interoperability test systems and want to encourage standardization bodies to include interoperability testing to the certification procedure.