A survey on Bluetooth multi-hop networks

Bluetooth was firstly announced in 1998. Originally designed as cable replacement connecting devices in a point-to-point fashion its high penetration arouses interest in its ad-hoc networking potential. This ad-hoc networking potential of Bluetooth is advertised for years - but until recently no actual products were available and less than a handful of real Bluetooth multi-hop network deployments were reported. The turnaround was triggered by the release of the Bluetooth Low Energy Mesh Profile which is unquestionable a great achievement but not well suited for all use cases of multi-hop networks. This paper surveys the tremendous work done on Bluetooth multi-hop networks during the last 20 years. All aspects are discussed with demands for a real world Bluetooth multi-hop operation in mind. Relationships and side effects of different topics for a real world implementation are explained. This unique focus distinguishes this survey from existing ones. Furthermore, to the best of the authors’ knowledge this is the first survey consolidating the work on Bluetooth multi-hop networks for classic Bluetooth technology as well as for Bluetooth Low Energy. Another individual characteristic of this survey is a synopsis of real world Bluetooth multi-hop network deployment efforts. In fact, there are only four reports of a successful establishment of a Bluetooth multi-hop network with more than 30 nodes and only one of them was integrated in a real world application - namely a photovoltaic power plant. © 2019 The Author

Improved Bluetooth network formation (IBNF)

© 2002 IEEE. Bluetooth ad hoc networks are formed by interconnecting Bluetooth enabled devices into piconets, and by interconnecting piconets into a scatternet. The existing protocols for scatternet formation expect all devices to be within transmission range of each other and there are no provisions yet for dynamic network reconfiguration in the process of devices joining or leaving the scatternet. We present a new distributed scatternet formation protocol designed to work in situations where all the devices are not necessarily within transmission range of each other. The protocol is a fault tolerant, semi proactive, randomized distributed protocol that adapts to the network topology and maintains connectivity within the scatternet, even under highly dynamic conditions without much reconfiguration