Performance Evaluation of Bluetooth Low Energy: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Small, compact and embedded sensors are a pervasive technology in everyday life for a wide number of applications (e.g., wearable devices, domotics, e-health systems, etc.). In this context, wireless transmission plays a key role, and among available solutions, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is gaining more and more popularity. BLE merges together good performance, low-energy consumption and widespread diffusion. The aim of this work is to review the main methodologies adopted to investigate BLE performance. The first part of this review is an in-depth description of the protocol, highlighting the main characteristics and implementation details. The second part reviews the state of the art on BLE characteristics and performance. In particular, we analyze throughput, maximum number of connectable sensors, power consumption, latency and maximum reachable range, with the aim to identify what are the current limits of BLE technology. The main results can be resumed as follows: throughput may theoretically reach the limit of ~230 kbps, but actual applications analyzed in this review show throughputs limited to ~100 kbps; the maximum reachable range is strictly dependent on the radio power, and it goes up to a few tens of meters; the maximum number of nodes in the network depends on connection parameters, on the network architecture and specific device characteristics, but it is usually lower than 10; power consumption and latency are largely modeled and analyzed and are strictly dependent on a huge number of parameters. Most of these characteristics are based on analytical models, but there is a need for rigorous experimental evaluations to understand the actual limits.

Detecting and Correcting for Human Obstacles in BLE Trilateration Using Artificial Intelligence

“…During each 50 ms scan interval the receiver is measuring one channel and will log RSSI values that are available during that interval. The receiver switches channels every scan interval [28,29]. 1500 samples of RSSI were collected from each transmitter on each of the three channels.…”

Beyond beaconing: Emerging applications and challenges of BLE

“…Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), also known as Bluetooth Smart, is an emerging short-range wireless technology aiming at low-power, low-latency, and low-complexity communications. With its deep market penetration (e.g., Bluetooth is available on almost all laptops, tablets, and smartphones), BLE has become an attractive alternative to many existing wireless communications technologies [1]. A new implementation of the Bluetooth protocol stack allows BLE to operate for very long time periods using only a coin-cell battery [2].…”

Experimental Evaluation of Advertisement-Based Bluetooth Low Energy Communication

“…In these applications, sensor data is exchanged after a connection is established, and advertisements are only used by the central device (e.g., a mobile phone or hub) to detect sensors. As the connected mode has been widely used and demonstrated in various applications, it has been thoroughly evaluated and tested, among others, for the following features: throughput, latency, energy consumption [4][5][6], coexistence with other BLE devices, as well as other radio technologies operating in the same radio band: WiFi, ZigBee, and IEEE 802.15.4 [7][8][9]. From the vast number of network deployments and various published research results, BLE can be considered as a well designed communication technology that is robust and reliable, even in the highly occupied 2.4 GHz spectral band.…”

“…From the vast number of network deployments and various published research results, BLE can be considered as a well designed communication technology that is robust and reliable, even in the highly occupied 2.4 GHz spectral band. However, the number of simultaneous connections is limited by the number of available radio channels and available resources in the device [5] (e.g., 8 for STMicroelectronics tags and 20 for Nordic Semiconductor tags). Consequently, the connected mode does not scale well and its application to large scale IoT systems is limited.…”