Bluetooth Radio Summary

• Normal Range : 10 meters

Bluetooth Radio • Normal Xmit Power : 1 milliWatt
Basics • Receiver Sensitivity : -70 dB
• Spectrum : 2.4 GHz (ISM band)
Features, Specifications, • Max Data Rate : 721 kbit + 56 kbit/3 voice ch.
Protocols, and How it Works

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Bluetooth Radio Frequency

Bluetooth’s Noise Solutions
Band
• ISM (Industrial, Scientific, Medical) Band • Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum technology
– 2.402GHz - 2.480GHz (79MHz total bandwidth) – Divides the band into 79 separate 1MHz channels
• Advantages • Uses short packets and makes 1600 hops/second
– Free – Minimizes exposure to noisy channels
– Open to everyone worldwide – Enables bad voice packets to be discarded
• Disadvantages • Forward Error Correction (FEC) of data packets
– Noise sources everywhere – Data often recoverable even on a noisy channel
• Cordless phones, microwave ovens, garage door openers, without retransmission
other wireless LAN technologies, baby monitors,...
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Bluetooth Transmission Protocol

Bluetooth Transmission
Frequency Hopping & Time Division
Protocol Duplexing
fk fk+1 fk+2 fk+3
• Frequency Hopping with Time Division Duplexing
Master
– Transmission rapidly hops among the available channels
– Transactions are divided into dedicated time slots each for the
Master and the Slave
• Typically odd cycles for the Master and evens for the Slaves
Slave1
• Terminology 625 µs 625 µs t
– Frame = a complete transmit/receive cycle Slot 1 Slot2 Slot 3 Slot4
– Slot = a 625 microsecond segment within a frame Frame 1 Frame 2

• Complete packet transmission occurs during a Slot

• Frequency hops from Slot to Slot to Slot
• Frames define matched Master / Slave Slot transmissions
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1
 Multi-Slave Transmission Multi-Slot Framing
fk fk+1 fk+2 fk+3 fk+4 fk+5 fk fk fk fk+3

Master Master

Slave1
Slave1
625 µs t
Slot 1 Slot2 Slot 3 Slot4
Slave2
Frame
t
• To increase bandwidth Bluetooth can aggregate multiple slots in one
• The Bluetooth master interleaves traffic between multiple simultaneously direction of the transmission (i.e. asymmetric transmission)
active slaves • Eliminates turnaround time and reduces packet overhead
• Note that frequency DOES NOT change during the multi-slot transmission
• Each Master can support up to 7 simultaneously active slaves • Bluetooth supports 1/1, 3/1, and 5/1 framing (example above is 3/1)
• 5/1 framing supports up to 721Kbps, Bluetooth’s maximum capacity
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Point to Multi-Point More on Frequency Hopping

Transmission How Devices Know Where and When to Hop
fk fk+1 fk+2 fk+3 fk+4 fk+5
Master • Bluetooth uses the Master’s device ID to algorithmically
determine the Frequency Hopping (FH) pattern
Slave1
• This algorithm generates a unique pattern that is quite
random and exhibits an extremely long repeat cycle
Slave2
ID f FH 03,23,42,71,07,54,28,13,15,32,48,79,61,25,59,08,19,26...

Slave3 • In addition Slaves utilize a clock offset parameter to

t synchronize their pattern into alignment with the Master
• The Bluetooth Master can also simultaneously transmit to all of its active Native Slave Pattern = 39,47,27,12,66,47,12, 03,23,42,71,07,54,28,13,15,32,48,79,61,25,59…
Slaves at one time
• In such transmissions there can be no reverse traffic from the Slaves Master Pattern = 03,23,42,71,07,54,28,13,15,32,48,79,61,25,59,08,19,26, 51,35,46,63…
Offset Slave Pattern = 03,23,42,71,07,54,28,13,15,32,48,79,61,25,59,08,19,26, 51,35,46,63…

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Advantages of Bluetooth’s Frequency Hopping

Architecture and Protocol 80
Graphically Illustrated 80

• Bluetooth can support a high density of devices

70 70

Each channel can carry a separate

all within range of each other without undue
60 60

Bluetooth transmission without contention

contention 50 50

Transmission Channel (1 - 79)

• Transmission efficiency degrades gracefully as
40 40

device density increases

30 30

20
Transmission Slot (time) 20

• The baseline 10 meter range limitation further

extends device capacity
10 10

0 0

• Fast hopping and short packets minimize the 0 10 20 30

Piconet A
40 50 60 70 80

Contention
90 100

impact of noise on performance Active Piconets: 1 Total Transmission Slots: 100 Transmission Slots Hit: 0 Transmission Efficiency: ~100%

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2
 Each Bluetooth Piconet Randomly Frequency Hopping Minimizes Exposure
Changes Frequency Slot by Slot by Slot to Data Loss Due to Noise
80 80 80 80

70 70 70 70

60 60 60 60

50 50 50 50

40 40 40 40

30 30 30 30

20 20 20
5MHz
5MHz noise
noise source
source 20

10 10 10 10

0 0
0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Piconet A Contention
Piconet A Contention

Active Piconets: 1 Total Transmission Slots: 100 Transmission Slots Hit: 0 Transmission Efficiency: ~100%
Active Piconets: 1 Total Transmission Slots: 100 Transmission Slots Hit: 07 ~93%
Transmission Efficiency: ~100%
7 ~93%

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Frequency Hopping With Multiple Piconets Bluetooth Piconets Degrade

80
Each Piconet Uses a Unique Frequency Hopping Pattern
80 80
Gracefully with Density... 80

70 70 70 70

60
• Four active piconets 60 60
• Ten active piconets 60

50 • 400 transmission slots 50 50 • 1000 transmission slots 50

• 10 collisions • 56 collisions
40 40 40 40
• 20 slots corrupted • 112 slots corrupted
30
• ~95% net efficiency 30 30
• ~89% net efficiency 30

20 20 20 20

10 10 10 10

0 0 0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Piconet A Piconet B Piconet C Piconet D Contention Contention Contention Contention Piconet A Piconet B Piconet C Piconet D Piconet E Piconet F Piconet G Piconet H Piconet I Piconet J
Contention Contention Contention Contention Contention Contention Contention Contention Contention Contention

Active Piconets: 4 Total Transmission Slots: 400 Transmission Slots Hit: 20 Transmission Efficiency: ~95% Active Piconets: 10 Total Transmission Slots: 1000 Transmission Slots Hit: 112 Transmission Efficiency: ~89%

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...And Maintain Reasonable

Performance Even In High Densities
80 80

70 70

60
• Twenty active piconets 60

50 • 2000 transmission slots 50

• 210 collisions
40 40
• 420 slots corrupted
30
• ~79% net efficiency 30

20 20

10 10

0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Piconet A Piconet B Piconet C Piconet D Piconet E Piconet F Piconet G Piconet H Piconet I Piconet J
Piconet K Piconet L Piconet M Piconet N Piconet O Piconet P Piconet Q Piconet R Piconet S Piconet T
C t ti C t ti C t ti C t ti C t ti C t ti C t ti C t ti C t ti C t ti
Active Piconets: 20 Total Transmission Slots: 2000 Transmission Slots Hit: 420 Transmission Efficiency: ~79%

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