Study

of Adaptive Frequency Hopping to

counter WiFi - Bluetooth interference for smart
hub devices
Sneha Uike - 16634, Northwestern Polytechnic University

Abstract

Two of the main facilitators of

Over the last 5-10 years or so, it

these changes are WiFi and

has become almost impossible to

Blutooth wireless technologies.

find an individual without a

They sometimes compete and

smartphone. Even an average

often complement each other for

non-technical user is expected to

deployment of new services

know how to turn on Bluetooth

around users. The new frontier

or WiFi on their respective

of development of this decade

electronic devices. Devices that

seems

keep looking for new real estate

connectivity of all the devices in

in everyone's personal space

one's personal space. This paper

from their desks to pockets to

is limited in its scope to explore

wrists to eyes. In fact, some of

the

the electronic gadgets have

simultaneous existence of these

begun to occupy people's hearts

two technologies in the same

and livers. Electronic gadgets in

given area. Given the fact that

some form or the other have

these both operate in 2.4GHz

always been in existence since

unlicensed ISM band (Industrial,

better part of second half of 20th

Scientific & Medical) frequency

century. What has changed

spectrum (please note that the

significantly in recent times is

discussion of 5GHz WiFi is

the fact that these devices have

beyond the scope of this paper),

gotten smaller, affordable and

it has been a topic of significant

most important of all can

research to avoid interference

communicate with us and each

between the two. Focus of this

other with utmost ease of use.

paper is on Adaptive Frequency

to

main

be

seamless

challenge

in

Hopping

implemented

on

Bluetooth protocol side.

beginning and are known to both

master and slave.

Introduction
Bluetooth operating frequency
spectrum

(2.40-2.48GHz)

is

divided into 79 channels of

1MHz each. Piconet is a cluster
of single master device and up to
7 concurrent slave devices it can

talk to. A 625microsecond time

Figure 1 Frequency Hopping

slot is used to transmit from

in Bluetooth

master to slave and vice versa. A

combination of master to slave
and consecutive slave to master
slot is called a slot pair. Because
the interference on each 1MHz
channel can increase or decrease
over a period of time in a
crowded

environment,

Bluetooth
receiver

transmitter
keep

hopping

and
on

different frequencies on every

time slot. These frequencyhopping

patterns

determined

(using

random

generator)

are
pseudoin

the

Adaptive Frequency Hopping

Prior to AFH, Bluetooth products
developed

used

random

frequency hopping. The first

generation

devices

hopped

across 79 channels in random

fashion at 1600 times/second. A
packet collision happens when
two packets overlap in time and
frequency.

The

collisions

between other signal packets in

the same band were limited to
coexisting channels. But the
addition of each new Bluetooth
device in the environment would

increase

the

collisions

exponentially.

device can avoid them is not

defined in the specification
standard. It is called channel
assessment
Received

Figure 2 Random Frequency
Hopping

and
Signal

measuring
Strength

Indication (RSSI) or Packet Error

Rate (PER) can do it.

During the development of

solutions on Bluetooth protocol
to

avoid

interference

with

802.11b-based devices, SIG and

Figure 3 Adaptive Frequency

Hopping

IEEE 802.15.2 Coexistence Task

Group

favored

adaptive

For

AFH,

Bluetooth

1.2

frequency hopping [1] approach

specification suggests changes to

and included it in the Bluetooth

baseband behavior, addition of

specification (1.2 Rev) itself.

Link Manager Protocol & Host

Adaptive Frequency Hopping

Controller Interface Commands,

allowed Bluetooth devices to

hopping kernel and events to

better adapt to its environment.

configure hopping sequences.

This included identifying sources

However, both master and slave

of interference and excluding

both

them from available channels

implementation of AFH on their

[2]. The process of identifying

sides for it to work.

which are the bad channels in

the network so that Bluetooth

have

to

have

the

Smart Hubs

control all of them is appealing.

Connected home is an old

This fuels the concept of central

concept but only recently has it

smart hubs and the need for

been within reach of average

robust,

user on a commercial scale.

communication between these

Smart hub communication and

hubs and the individual gadgets

controlling with smart electronic

on the periphery of home

gadgets in the household has

networks means better handling

always been possible. What

of interference between these.

changed is the fact the phones

Summary

and

become

Before the advent of Internet of

ubiquitous and they are capable

Things could be facilitated,

of

over

Bluetooth standard solved the

Bluetooth and wifi as well. This

problem of interference in

takes care of one end of the

multiple communicating devices

transmitter-receiver link and the

in the Personal Area Networks

gadgets only have to implement

with

the other end. This has propelled

Hopping and it should now great

wifi and Bluetooth technologies

deal with the deployment of

ahead of Zigbee and the likes,

smart hub devices which are

which are not available on

becoming commonplace.

smartphones.

References

tablets

have

communicating

With

the

increasing number of devices to

control lighting, security, audio,
cleaning in the household, the
notion of having a central entity

low

Adaptive

power

Frequency

[1] Bluetooth Adaptive

Frequency Hopping and
Scheduling, N. Golmie Military
Comms Conference, 2003.
[2] http://www.design-reuse.com/