NearLink
NearLink (Chinese: 星闪), also known as SparkLink, is a short-range wireless technology standard, which was developed by the SparkLink Alliance, led by Huawei to set up on September 22, 2020. As of September 2023, the alliance has more than 300 enterprises and institutions on board, which include automotive manufacturers, chip and module manufacturers, application developers, ICT companies, and research institutions.
NearLink logo | |
| Developed by | NearLink Alliance |
|---|---|
| Introduced | 4 November 2022 |
| Industry | Personal area networks |
| Compatible hardware | Smartphones Personal computers Audio devices Embedded devices Internet of things Internet of vehicles |
| Website | http://www.sparklink.org.cn/ |
On November 4, 2022, the alliance released the SparkLink Short-range Wireless Communications Standard 1.0, which incorporates two modes of access, namely, SparkLink Low Energy (SLE) and SparkLink Basic (SLB), to integrate the features of traditional wireless technologies, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, with enhanced prerequisites for latency, power consumption, coverage, and security.
NearLink employs the Cyclic Prefix-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (Cyclic Prefix-OFDM) waveform to address latency issues in various applications. The waveform features an ultra-short frame structure and a flexible scheduling scheme of time-domain resources, reducing transmission latency to approximately 20 microseconds. In addition, NearLink applies polar codes and adopts Hybrid Automatic Repeat-reQuest (HARQ) schemes to support applications with high reliability requirements, such as industrial closed-loop control applications for automated assembly lines, where reliability requirements are at least 99.999%.
The first product to feature NearLink technology was the Huawei Mate 60 series smartphone introduced by Huawei on August 29, 2023.