BLUETOOTH

• Bluetooth is developed by a group of

electronics manufacturers that will allow any
sort of electronic equipment -- from computers
and cell phones to keyboards and headphones
-- to make its own connections, without wires,
cables or any direct action from a user.
• The Bluetooth Special Interest Group comprises
more than 1000 companies.The major
companies who created the technology include
Intel
3 com
Ericcson
IBM
Motorola
Nokia
Toshiba
The Name –Bluetooth?

• The name is attributed to Harald Bluetooth was

king of Denmark .

• Choosing this name for the standard indicates

how important companies from the Baltic region
(nations including Denmark, Sweden, Norway
and Finland) are to the communications
industry
• Present wireless technology like infra red data
communication has two problems –1)Line of Sight
2) One to One
• Using data synchronizing– e.g. syn on a PDA ---
problem of using the right cradle and cable.
• BLUETOOTH OVERCOMES THESE PROBLEMS
• It provides agreement at the physical level --
Bluetooth is a radio-frequency standard.
• Provides agreement at the data link level where
products have to agree on
when bits are sent
how many will be sent at a time
how the parties in a conversation can be sure
that the message received is the same as the
message sent
The Basic Idea

• Bluetooth is a standard for a small , cheap radio

chip to be plugged into computers, printers, mobile
phones, etc
• Bluetooth chip is designed to replace
cables.Information normally carried by
the cable, is transmitted at a special
frequency to a receiver Bluetooth chip.
• These devices can form a quick ad-hoc secure
“piconet” and start communication.
• Connections in the “piconets” can occur even when
mobile.
“Piconet”

• A collection of devices connected via Bluetooth

technology in an ad hoc fashion.
• A piconet starts with two connected devices,
and may grow to eight connected devices.
• All Bluetooth devices are peer units and have
identical implementations. However, when
establishing a piconet, one unit will act as a
Master and the other(s) as slave(s) for the
duration of the piconet connection.
Requirements

• Low cost as cables – chip $5

• Secure as cables – must support authentication and
encryption
• Must support both data and voice.
• Must connect to a variety of devices.
• Must be able to function in a noisy environment.
• Data rates – 721kbps , using the 2.45Ghz radio frequency
band –I.S.M (Industrial, scientific and medical)
• Must support many simultaneous and private “piconets”.
• Must be low power, compact and global.
Usage Models- Voice/Data Access Points
• Connecting a computing device
to a communicating device.
• Allows any device with a
bluetooth chip to connect to the
internet while located within the
range of the access point.
• Example- a notebook could link
to the internet using a mobile
phone as an access point.
Usage models-Peripheral Interconnects

• Standard peripheral devices like

keyboard, mice, headsets etc
working over a wireless link.
• The same device can be used in
multiple functions e.g a headset
can access phones while in the
office and can interface with a
cellular phone when mobile.
Usage model- Personal Area Networking.(PAN)

• Allows dynamic
formation and
breakdown of
“PICONETS”--ad-hoc
personal networks.
Bluetooth Architecture

• Core Specification -Deals

with the lower layers of the
architecture and describes
how the technology works.
• Profile Specification -
Focuses on how to build
interoperating devices
using the core technology.
RF Layer

The Radio (layer) is the lowest defined

layer of the Bluetooth specification.
It defines the requirements of the
Bluetooth transceiver device operating in
the 2.4GHz ISM band.
• In order to minimize interference the nominal
antenna power is 1 mW which can be extended to
100mW.
• The low power limits the range to about 10
centimeters to 10 meters. With higher power of
100mW range of 100meters can be achieved.
• It uses a packet switching protocol based on a
technology called spread-spectrum frequency
hopping to spread the energy across the ISM
band.
Spread-Spectrum frequency hopping

• A device will use 79 individual randomly chosen frequencies

within a designated range, changing from one to another on
a regular basis.
• The designated range is from 2.402GHz to 2.480GHz, in steps
of 1MHz.
• The frequency hopping is done at a rate of 1600 times a
second.
• This allows more devices to use the limited time slice and
secondly reduces the chance of two transmitters being on
the same frequency at the same time.
• Baseband layer – This layer defines the timing,
framing, packets and flow control on the link.
• Link Manager – Responsible for managing
connection states(authentication & encryption),
enforcing fairness among slaves & power mangt.
• Logical Link Layer – Handles multiplexing,
segmentation and reassembly of large packets and
device discovery.
• Audio – The audio data is directly mapped to the
baseband layer.
Bluetooth Frame

• Each frame consists of a transmit packet and a

receive packet.
• Each packet may have either 1, 3 or 5 slots of 625ùs.
• Single slot packet – max data rate of 172Kbps
• Multislot frames support higher rates– 721Kbps or a
max. of 3 voice channels.
Network Topology

• All units have a unique global ID(BD_Addr)

address( 48 bits)
• The unit that initializes the connection is assigned as
the master which controls the traffic of the
connection.
• A master can simultaneously connect upto seven
slaves.
• The master/slave roles can be swapped.
• A device can be a master in only one “piconet” at a
time.
Forming a piconet

• Needs two parameters --- a) Hopping pattern of the

radio it wishes to connect. b) Phase within the
pattern i.e. the clock offset of the hops.
• The global ID defines the hopping pattern.
• The master shares its global ID and its clock offset
with the other radios which become slaves.
• The global ID and the clock parameters are
exchanged using a FHS (Frequency Hoping
Synchronization) packet.
• Devices not connected to a piconet are in STANDBY mode,
using low power.
• A connection is made by either a PAGE command if the
address is known or by the INQUIRY command followed by a
PAGE
• When a radio sends an INQUIRE command, all the listening
radios respond with their FHS packets, which tells the
inquiring radio of all the radios in the area.
• All listening radios perform a page scan and/or an inquiry
scan every 1.25 seconds.
• The master radio sends an FHS to the paged radio.
• Shows a bunch of
bluetooth devices in
proximity of each
other.
• Each device has its
own ID and its clock
offset
• Radio A has become
the master and has
formed a piconet with
B and C as the slaves.
• Both B and C now share
A’s ID and and clock
offset.
• When a radio joins a piconet it is assigned a 3 bit
Active Member Address(AMA).
• Once the piconet has eight radios, the master
assigns puts a radio into the PARK mode.
• This is one of the low power states, in which the
radio releases its AMA for a 8 bit PMA (Passive
Member Address).
• The freed AMA can be assigned to another radio
wishing to join the piconet.
• Though upto 256 radios can actively reside on a
piconet, only 8 of them with AMA’s can transfer
data.
• Once a radio joins the piconet and has an AMA it
can direct data to other devices on the piconet.
• In order to remain in the connected state within a
piconet, the radio needs to maintain the frequency
hopping pattern and offset while consuming low
power.
• To achieve this the connected radios can be placed
in either PARK, HOLD or SNIFF modes.
HOLD MODE
• When data needs to be transmitted very infrequently, thus
conserving power.
• In this mode only an internal timer is running.
• No data is transferred when in HOLD mode.
• The master can put slaves on HOLD mode.
SNIFF MODE
A slave device listens to the piconet at a reduced rate.
The SNIFF interval is programmable.
In both the HOLD and SNIFF states the device retains its
AMA.
PARK MODE
 The device has given up the AMA and has become passive.

 The parked device will occasionally listen to see if the master has sent
any broadcast data asking it to become active.
Types of Links and Packets

Synchronous Connection Oriented(SCO)

Point to point full duplex link.
Typically used for voice data.
These packets do not use CRC and are not retransmitted.
Needs an asynchronous connectionless (ACL) type link to be first
established.
Asynchronous Connectionless Link
This is a packet switched link between a master and slave.
Supports both isochronous and asynchronous data.
Error Correction Schemes
Forward error correction(1/3 and 2/3)
Automatic Repeat Request scheme.
Security
• Authentication and encryption
is provided at the Link Manager
layer.
• The PIN is translated into a 128
bit link key which is used for
authentication.
• After authentication the radios
will settle on a suitable length
encryption key to be used.
• Bluetooth relies on PIN codes to
establish trusted relationships
between devices.