WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY – BLUETOOTH

Abstract:

Every new invention in the past ha to contend with various cynics who content that the

existing technology is better than the new one or do you recall anyone saying “That won’t work man it’s

too Hi-Fi”, Well Blue tooth is also passing through the same phase.

For every new technology to get integrated into the society we have to pass certain

phases that are predefined.

1. Scientific discussion: This is the place where the new technology is introduced and born out. Here the

papers are presented at scientific seminars. Various problems are ironed out here.

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2. Industry standard: Industry standard are developed for the future implementation of the protocol.

These have to be cost efficient and readily integrable into the society

3. Billion dollar investment: This is the stage where all the industries make their investment into new

technology. The new technology is taken to the targeted segment of the user.

Our blue tooth technology is still in the first phase (i.e., scientific discussion), where

the technology is still studied. In this paper what we planned to do is to take part in this crucial segment

of scientific discussion.

In this paper we are going to discuss the following regarding blue tooth technology.

 What is blue tooth?

 How does the technology works?

 Network Arrangements & Connection Protocols.

 Security & Applications of Bluetooth.

 Bluetooth-“Simply the Best!”

 Industries interested in this new technology.

Why Bluetooth?

In most of the communication systems wires are involved in transmission and receiving of

data. For example, the wires are used to connect computer peripherals to pc, and the pc to the net. In this

blue tooth technique wireless communication for transmitting and receiving of data is performed. The

Blue tooth radio chip functions at 2.4 GHZ, which is in the unlicensed ISM (Industrial Scientific Medical)

band. It can be transmitted over a range of 10m to 100m. The technology of Bluetooth centers a round a

9mmx9mm microchip, which functions as a low cost and a short-range radio link. It provides security for

both stationery and mobile devices.

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Wireless connectivity over Bluetooth:

The basic function is to provide a standard wireless technology to replace the multitude of

propriety cables currently linking computer devices. Better than the image of the spaghetti-free computer

system is the ability of the radio technology to the network when away from traditional networking

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structures such as business intranet.for, example imagine being on a business trip with a laptop and a

phone. The Bluetooth technology allows interfacing the two. Then picture meeting a client and

transferring files without cabling or worrying about protocols. That is what the Bluetooth will do.

Network arrangement:
Bluetooth network arrangements can be either point-to-point or point-to-

multipoint. The various network arrangements regarding Bluetooth are:

 a) Single-slave

 b) Multi-slave(up to 7 ‘Slaves’ on one master)

 c) Scatternet

Piconet:

Piconet is a collection of

devices connected via Bluetooth technology in an ad-hoc fashion. A piconet starts with two connected

devices, such as a portable PC and a mobile phone. A maximum of eight units can be connected in a

Piconet. All Bluetooth devices are ‘peer units’ and have identical implementations. However, when

establishing a piconet one unit will act as a master for synchronization purposes and the other units will

be slaves for the duration of piconet connection.

Scatternet:

A Scatternet is two or more independent and non-synchronized piconets that

communicate with each other. A slave as well as a master unit in one piconet can establish this connection

by becoming a slave in the other piconet.It will then relay communications between the piconets, if the

need arises. A Master or Slave can become Slave in another piconet by being paged by the Master in this

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other Piconet. This automatically means that any unit can create a new Piconet by paging a unit that is

already a member of a piconet. Any unit participating in one Piconet can page the Master or Slave in

another piconet. This could lead to a switch of roles between Master and Slave in this new connection.

Frequency Hopping in Bluetooth:

Bluetooth has been designed to operate in a noisy radio frequency environments, and

uses a fast acknowledgement and frequency hopping scheme to make link robust,

communicationwise.Bluetooth radio modules avoid interference from other signals by hopping to a

frequency after transmitting or receiving a packet. Thus, Bluetooth modules use Frequency-Hopping

Spread Spectrum (FHSS) techniques for voice and data transmission. Compared with other systems

operating in the same frequency band, Bluetooth radio typically hops faster and uses shorter packets.

FHSS uses packet-switching to send data from the transmitter of one Bluetooth module to

the receiver of another. Unlike circuit-switching which establishes a communication link on a certain

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frequency (channel), FHSS breaks the data down into small packets and transfers it on a wide range of

frequencies across the available frequency band. Bluetooth transceivers switch or “hop” among 79 hop

frequencies in the 2.4 GHz band at a rate of 1,600 frequency hops per second.

Transmission types and rates

The base band (single channel per line) protocol combines circuit and packet

switching .To assure that packets do not arrive out of order; slots (up to five) can be reserved for

synchronous packets. A different hop signal is used for each packet. Circuit switching can be either

synchronous or asynchronous. The Asynchronous connectionless (ACL) is primarily for data and the

Synchronous Connection Oriented (SCO) method is used primarily for voice. Time Division Duplex

(TDD) is used by both SCO and ACL, and both supports 16 types of packets, four of which are control

packets that are the same in each type. Because of the need for smoothness in data transmission, SCO

packets are generally delivered via reserved intervals, that is, the packets are sent in groups without

allowing other transmissions to interrupt. SCO packets can be transmitted without polling by the sending

unit. ACL links support both symmetric and asymmetric transmissions. Bandwidth is collected by the

master unit, which determines how much of the total each slave unit can use. Slaves cannot transmit data

until the master has polled them, and the master can broadcast messages to the slave units via ACL link.

Each synchronous channel can support a 64 Kb/s transfer rate, which is fully adequate for voice

transmissions. An asynchronous channel can transmit as much as 721 Kb/s in one direction and 57.6 Kb/s

transfer rate in the opposite direction. It is also possible for an asynchronous connection to support 432.6

Kb/s in both directions if the link is symmetric.

Connection protocol:
Blue tooth connections are established via the following techniques:

1. Standby: Devices not connected in a piconet are in standby mode. In this mode, they listen for

messages every 1.28 seconds over 32 hop frequencies

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2. Page/Inquiry: If a device wishes to make a connection with another device, it sends out a page

message, if the address is known, or an inquiry followed by a page message, if it is unknown. The master

unit sends out 16 identical page messages on 16 hop frequencies to the slave unit. If there is no response,

the master retransmits on the other 16 hop frequencies. The inquiry method requires an extra response

from the slave unit, since the MAC address is unknown to the master unit.

3. Active: The transmission of data occurs.

4. Hold: A hold mode can be established, when either the master or slave wishes, during which no data is

transmitted. The main purpose of this is to conserve power. A typical reason for going into hold mode is

the connection of several Pico nets.

5. Sniff: The sniff mode is applicable only to slave units, is for power conservation, though not at as

reduced a level as hold. Here the slave doesn’t take an active role in the piconet. This is usually a

programmable setting.

Security:

The security is provided in three ways

• Pseudo-random frequency band hops

• Authentication & emdash; allows a user to control connectivity to only devices specified.

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 • Encryption & emdash; uses secret key lengths of 1, 40, and 64 bits.

The quality of security is excellent for most applications. However, it is not the highest level

available and for those users who require it, the suggestion is to investigate separate network transfer

protocol and security software.

Safer transmission of data:

Are transmissions secure in a business and home environment? Yes, they are supposed to be

quite reliable. Bluetooth has built in sufficient encryption and authentication and is thus very secure in

any environment. In addition to this, a frequency-hopping scheme with 1600 hops/sec. is employed. This

is far quicker than any other competing system. This, together with an automatic output power

adaption to reduce the range exactly to requirement, makes the system extremely difficult to eavesdrop.

Control of the link connections:

The Bluetooth system consists of the radio chip and controller. The link manager

(LM) is software that controls link setup, link configuration and other protocols. The hardware underlying

the LM is the Link controller (LC).

The following tasks are performed by those mentioned above:

• Sending and receiving data

• Setting up connections

• Paging and inquiries

• Determination the frame type of the packet

Bluetooth – “Simply the Best!”:

Bluetooth competes with existing technologies like IrDA, WLAN and Home RF.

IrDA is not omni directional and it is a line-of-sight technology. WLAN’s are essentially ordinary LAN-

protocols modulated on carrier waves, while Bluetooth is more complex. HomeRF is a voice and data

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home networking which operates at a low speed. Bluetooth hops very fast (1600 hops/second) between

frequencies, which does not allow for long data blocks. These problems are overcome in Bluetooth and

that’s why Bluetooth is considered “Simply the Best”.

Bluetooth in Future:

 A Bluetooth-mouse could be used at a further distance from a monitor, and while moving about in the

room.

 A Bluetooth-keyboard could be used further away from the monitor. This would reduce eye-strain for

persons who are long-sighted.

 A Bluetooth-keyboard could also be used to address more than one computer, in a dynamic, switch

less manner.

 Use e-mail while your portable PC is still in the briefcase! When your portable PC receives an e-mail,

you'll get an alert on your mobile phone.

 A traveling businessman could ask his laptop computer to locate a suitable printer as soon as he enters

a hotel lobby, and send a printout to that printer when it has been found, and replied in a positive

manner.

 Cable-less connection to printers and faxes.

 Cable-less connection to digital cameras and video projectors.

 Cordless connection from cell phone to hands free headset.

 Use cell phone as office cordless phone.

Vendors of this technology:

The five founding members of the Bluetooth SIG (Special Interest Group)

are Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia and Toshiba. On December 1, 1999, the founding members announced

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that 3COM, Lucent, Microsoft, and Motorola have joined the founders to form the Promoter Group with

the founding companies. To date more than 2000 Adopter/Associate member companies have signed on.

Conclusion:
Finally, we conclude that this Bluetooth technology will make a great evolution

in the communication field. This can also be implemented in embedded Internet. The embedded Internet

based on Bluetooth seems all set to revolutionalize our living and work environments today. Cahners In-

stat sees a global market for Bluetooth chips of $400m in 2001, implying that at least 20m Bluetooth

enabled devices will find buyers. They also predict that 1.4 billon Bluetooth-enabled devices will be

shipping annually by 2005.Those numbers are comparable to the predictions of the International Data

Corporation.

Bibliography

1. SALTZER J., D. REED, AND D.CLARK,” END-TO-END ARGUMENTS IN SYSTEM

DESIGN”, ACM TRANSACTIONS ON COMPUTER SYSTEMS, 1984.

2. “WIRELESS RESEARCH” BY W.A.ARBAUGH.

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3. U.BLUMENTHAL AND B.WIJNEN “USER-BASED SECURITY MODEL FOR SIMPLE

NETWORK MANAGEMENT PROTOCOL”.

4. B.MILLER,”IEEE 802.11 AND BLUETOOTH WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY”.

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