Effects of Piconet Saturation on a Bluetooth Streaming Audio Channel

Bluetooth is a technology for wireless personal area networks (WPAN) that eliminates the need for cables, standardizes interfaces, and can automate many standard office processes such as sending and receiving email, synchronizing schedules, or exchanging business cards. With each workstation creating its own Bluetooth network, called a piconet, different Air Force environments have the potential, in some cases, to create more than 50 overlapping piconets, which significantly increases the potential for inter-piconet interference. This research investigates the effects of inter-piconet interference on a Bluetooth channel, streaming audio, offered at 24, 40, and 64 Kbps. It shows that as the number of overlapping piconets increases from zero to five, the effects on packet error rate are significant, climbing at times to just under 9%

Seamless Role Switch Of Two True Wireless Earbuds Which Is Using Relay Solution

A solution is provided to make the role switch of fully wireless earbuds in relay format seamless. As such, no audio glitch is perceptible when the role switch occurs. When role switch occurs, the first accessory sends all wireless communication profile information to the second accessory. The second accessory can then reconstruct all the profiles used between the first accessory and the host. The first accessory and second accessory will negotiate the exact timing of switching roles, then the first accessory makes sure all the existing audio buffer contents are synchronized with the second accessory. Then role switch occurs, and the first accessory becomes the slave while the second accessory becomes the master. The first and second devices now use the third ACL link for data transfer, instead of the second ACL link. By using the third ACL link, the first and second accessories do not need to do a traditional Bluetooth role switch, thereby avoiding a possibility of audio glitches of approximately 300ms

Bluetooth audio and video streaming on the J2ME platform

With the increase in bandwidth, more widespread distribution of media, and increased capability of mobile devices, multimedia streaming has not only become feasible, but more economical in terms of space occupied by the media file and the costs involved in attaining it. Although much attention has been paid to peer to peer media streaming over the Internet using HTTP and RTSP, little research has focussed on the use of the Bluetooth protocol for streaming audio and video between mobile devices. This project investigates the feasibility of Bluetooth as a protocol for audio and video streaming between mobile phones using the J2ME platform, through the analysis of Bluetooth protocols, media formats, optimum packet sizes, and the effects of distance on transfer speed. A comparison was made between RFCOMM and L2CAP to determine which protocol could support the fastest transfer speed between two mobile devices. The L2CAP protocol proved to be the most suitable, providing average transfer rates of 136.17 KBps. Using this protocol a second experiment was undertaken to determine the most suitable media format for streaming in terms of: file size, bandwidth usage, quality, and ease of implementation. Out of the eight media formats investigated, the MP3 format provided the smallest file size, smallest bandwidth usage, best quality and highest ease of implementation. Another experiment was conducted to determine the optimum packet size for transfer between devices. A tradeoff was found between packet size and the quality of the sound file, with highest transfer rates being recorded with the MTU size of 668 bytes (136.58 KBps). The class of Bluetooth transmitter typically used in mobile devices (class 2) is considered a weak signal and is adversely affected by distance. As such, the final investigation that was undertaken was aimed at determining the effects of distance on audio streaming and playback. As can be expected, when devices were situated close to each other, the transfer speeds obtained were higher than when devices were far apart. Readings were taken at varying distances (1-15 metres), with erratic transfer speeds observed from 7 metres onwards. This research showed that audio streaming on the J2ME platform is feasible, however using the currently available class of Bluetooth transmitter, video streaming is not feasible. Video files were only playable once the entire media file had been transferred

Collecting and Analyzing Failure Data of Bluetooth Personal Area Networks

This work presents a failure data analysis campaign on Bluetooth Personal Area Networks (PANs) conducted on two kind of heterogeneous testbeds (working for more than one year). The obtained results reveal how failures distribution are characterized and suggest how to improve the dependability of Bluetooth PANs. Specically, we dene the failure model and we then identify the most effective recovery actions and masking strategies that can be adopted for each failure. We then integrate the discovered recovery actions and masking strategies in our testbeds, improving the availability and the reliability of 3.64% (up to 36.6%) and 202% (referred to the Mean Time To Failure), respectively

An overview of the quality of service in bluetooth communications in healthcare

Currently, the general public requires devices getting faster and great performance, that is, devices ensuring a better quality of service. One way to achieve these goals is through the use of devices supported by the mobile com-puting with tools to help the search for information. Bluetooth technology is an open standard for wireless communication allowing the transmission of data and information between electronic devices within walking distance, with minimum resource expenditures, safe and rapid transition of data. So, the Bluetooth tech-nology was initially designed to support simple network devices and personal devices such as mobile phones, PDAs and computers, but quickly it were discov-ered other applications in several areas. In this article, it will be performed a lit-erature review on the topic, with the goal to understand how the Bluetooth tech-nology can benefit increases in the Quality of Service and the presentation of some actual and potential biomedical applications.(undefined

An investigation of bluetooth mergence with ultra wideband

This article investigates the viability of a merger between Bluetooth and Ultra Wideband by developing and implementing a Bluetooth over Ultra Wideband data channeling system with an emphasis on the design of an economically feasible system and the viability of the proposed merger points. The designed system is then applied to transfer Bluetooth data over a compliant UWB Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical (PHY) layer radio channel to prove its functioning and unveil the advantages UWB may provide to Bluetooth with regards to speed and distance.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/1570870

Push-to-Talk över Bluetooth

Push-to-Talk over Cellular (PoC) är en teknologi som möjliggör en radiotelefonlik service över GPRS vilken väckt ökande popularitet. I skrivande stund pågår specifiering av en öppen PoC-standard inom Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). OMA planerar att baser PoC på en IP/UDP/RTP protokollstack samt en server-clientarkitektur. Systemet utnyttjar även SIP-signaleringsegenskaperna hos IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). PoC-nätelement handhar bl.a. gruppförvaltning och taltursfördelning. Forskningsproblemet för denna avhandling är: "Hur kan en PoC-liknande service erbjudas gratis åt mobiltelefonsanvändare med hjälp av Bluetooth-teknologi?" Den primära målsättningen för detta arbete är därmed att skissa upp ett förslag för hur man kunde utveckla en Push-to-Talk (PTT)-funktion som utnyttjar ett Bluetooth scatternet-nät samt PAN-profilen för att överföra data. En måttlig räckvidd kan uppnås med hjälp av Bluetooth apparater av effektklass 1 vars räckvidd kan vara t.o.m. 100 m. En sekundär målsättning är att beskriva PoC samt de protokoll PoC utnyttjar (t.ex. SIP och SDP). Denna beskrivning utgör både en utgångspunkt för att uppnå den primära målsättningen och erbjuder även en introduktion till OMA PoC som lämpar sig för både studeranden och yrkesmän. Det uppskissade förslaget för Push-to-Talk över Bluetooth (PoB) innefattar metoder för skapande av grupper och nät, dataöverföring samt taltursfördelning. Metoden för nätskapande (som kan vara användbar även för andra ändamål) baserar sig på att skapa ett scatternet emellan apparater som tillhör en på förhand specifierad grupp av apparater samt på att undvika slingor. Detta möjliggör enkel kommunikation genom att skicka data till alla apparater inom nätet, förutsatt att de apparater som sammanbinder piconet-näten till ett scatternet fungerar som repeterare. Ytterligare uppskissas en metod för att kombinera PoB och PoC. Avsikten med detta är att möjliggöra PTT-kommunikation med både lokalt och avlägset belägna gruppmedlemmar med hjälp av Bluetooth respektive GPRS.Push-to-Talk over Cellular (PoC) is an emerging technology enabling a walkie-talkie-like service over GPRS. At the time of writing, an open standard for PoC is being specified by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). As specified by the OMA standard drafts, PoC is based on an IP/UDP/RTP protocol stack and a client-server based architecture. The systems exploits the SIP signalling capabilities of the the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). Group management, floor control etc are administered by the network elements of PoC. The research problem of this thesis is: "How can mobile phone users be provided with a free-of-charge PTT-feature with PoC-like user experience by means of Bluetooth technology?" The primary objective of the study is thus to propose an outline for developing a Push-to-Talk (PTT) feature that utilizes a Bluetooth scatternet and the PAN profile for data communications. A reasonable range can be obtained with Bluetooth class 1 devices, which provide a range of up to 100 m. A subsidiary objective is to provide a description of OMA PoC and the protocols it relies upon. The description serves both as a basis for pursuing the primary objective and as a tutorial, which is suitable for students or professionals desiring to acquaint themselves with OMA PoC. The proposed outline for Push-to-Talk over Bluetooth (PoB) comprises e.g. methods for group formation, network formation, communication, and floor control. The network formation method, which can be utilized in other applications as well, is based on creating a scatternet among a predefined set of devices and on avoiding loops. This approach enables usage of a simple broadcasting based communication method, in which the devices bridging the piconets into a scatternet act as repeaters. A method for combining PoB and PoC is also outlined. It is intended for enabling PTT-communication with both local and distant group members over Bluetooth and GPRS respectively