Mechanisms for improving throughput and energy efficiency of Bluetooth Low Energy for multi node environment

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a recently developed energy-efficient short-range radio communication technology, which is nowadays vastly becoming more and more popular. The technology aims to provide an energy-efficient low-cost wireless communication mechanism for a wide range of resource-limited consumer electronic devices and applications. In this paper we focus on the networking aspects of the technology. First, we overview fundamentals of BLE communication technology, discuss its capabilities and limitations, and compare BLE with state-of-the-art technologies. Furthermore, we identify and discuss two scenarios, for which standard BLE communication mechanisms show poor performance and propose two mechanisms capable of improving throughput and energy efficiency of BLE communication in multi node environment. The efficiency of the proposed mechanisms is proved via network level simulations, which are executed using the developed BLE simulation tool. The results of the simulations are reported and discussed. We believe that the presented results might be of some interest not only for academic researchers but also for practicing engineers.