BLUETOOTH

INTRODUCTION

Bluetooth is a big step towards an era of smart rooms and appliances which think and care about themselves and you. In fact it is a protocol specification for wireless connectivity in a home like environment. The Bluetooth wireless technology was created to solve a simple problem: replace the cables used on mobile devices with radio frequency waves. The technology encompasses a simple low-cost, low-power, global radio system for integration into mobile devices

WHO STARTED IT?

About five companies viz. ERRICSSON, INTEL, IBM, NOKIA, TOSHIBA founded the Bluetooth SIG in spring 1998. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group is an industry consisting of leaders in the telecommunications, computing and networking industries that are driving development of the technology and bringing it to market. Bluetooth is currently led by the promoter group of Bluetooth SIG

Physical layer

Bluetooth devices will be integrated into typical mobile devices and, thus, must rely on battery power. This requires small, low-power chips which can be built into handheld devices. Worldwide operation also requires the use of a frequency available worldwide. Bluetooth uses the license-free frequency band at 2.4 GHz allowing for worldwide operation with some minor adaptations to national restrictions. A frequency-hopping scheme is used for transmission with a fast hopping rate of 1600 hops per second. The time between two hops is called a slot, which is an interval of 625 us, thus, each slot uses a different frequency.

With transmitting power of up to 100 mW, Bluetooth devices have a range of up to 10m or even up to 100m with special receivers. Having this power and relying on battery power, a Bluetooth device cannot be in an active transmit mode all the time. Bluetooth defines several low-power states for the device.

Every device which is currently not participating in a piconet and not switched off is in STANDBY mode Connections can be initiated by any device which then becomes the master. This is done via sending PAGE messages if the device already knows the address of the receiver, or INQUIRY messages followed by a page message if the receivers address is unknown. The master unit sends 16 identical page messages on 16 different hop frequencies to the receiver which is now the slave, if this slave does not respond the master again sends page messages.

This method assures a maximum delay. To save battery power, a Bluetooth device can go into one of three low power states if no data is ready to be sent
STANDB Y

Inquir y

Page

Transmi t

Connect ed

PARK

HOLD

SNIFF

PARK state

In this state the device has the lowest duty cycle and, the lowest power consumption. The device releases its MAC address, but remains synchronized with the piconet. Therefore the device occasionally listens to the traffic of the master device to resynchronize and check for broadcast messages.

HOLD state: The power consumption of this state is little higher. In this mode the device does not release its MAC address and can resume sending at once after transition out of the hold state. SNIFF state: The sniff state has the highest power consumption of the low-power states. Here the device listens to the piconet at a reduced rate. The interval for listening into the medium can be programmed and is application dependent.

MAC LAYER

First of all one device within a piconet acts as master, all other devices act as slaves. The master determines the hopping frequency using its unique device identifier. This unique setting of master parameters prevents two different piconets from having the same hopping sequence.

The Bluetooth SIG has specified some usage models and their protocols. The following are the highest priority usage models. File Transfer: The file transfer usage model offers the ability to transfer data objects from one device (e.g., PC, smart-phone, or PDA) to another. Object types include, but are not limited to, .xls, .ppt, .wav, .jpg, and .doc files, entire folders or directories or streaming media formats.

Bluetooth Usage Models and Protocols:

FILE TRANFER APPLICATION

OBEX SDP RFCOM

L2CAP

Internet Bridge: In this usage model, mobile phone or cordless modem acts as modem to the PC, providing dialup networking [8] and fax [9] capabilities without need for physical connection to the PC. The dial-up

LAN Access:

In this usage model multiple data terminals (DTs) use a LAN access point (LAP) as a wireless connection to a Local Area Network (LAN). Once connected, the DTs operate as if it they were connected to the LAN via dialup networking. The DT can access all of the services provided by the LAN. The protocol stack is nearly identical to the protocol stack in the Internet bridge usage model except that the ATcommands are not used.

Synchronization:

The synchronization usage model provides a device-to-device (phone, PDA, computer, etc.) synchronization of the PIM (personal information management) information, typically phonebook, calendar, message, and note information. Synchronization requires business card, calendar and task Information to be transferred and processed by computers, cellular phones and PDAs utilizing a common protocol and format

NETWORKING:

All users within one piconet have the same hopping frequency and thus share the same channel. As more users join the piconet, the throughput per user drops quickly. Having only one piconet available is thus not efficient. This led to the idea of forming groups of piconets called scatternet. Only those units that really have to exchange data share the same piconet, so that many piconets with overlapping coverage can exist simultaneously.

LINK MANAGAMENT

A Bluetooth system is managed by a link manager (LM). An LM handles the authentication procedure, carries out link setup and release. Link managers on different devices communicate using the link manager protocol (LMP) and all LMs use the services provided by the link controller (LC).

Conclusion

The Bluetooth wireless technology delivers lot of benefits to end users. It enables users to connect a wide range of computing and telecommunications devices easily and simply with out the need to buy, carry or connect cables. It delivers opportunities for rapid adhoc connections, and the possibility of automatic, unconscious, connections between devices. It creates the possibility of using mobile data in a beneficial way.