Introduction to Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a low-cost, low-power, short-range radio link technology for mobile and
stationary environments and WAN/LAN access points. Bluetooth technology allows
users to make effortless, wireless and instant connections between various
communication devices, like mobile phones, desktop and notebook computers. Since
Bluetooth uses radio transmission, both voice and data transfer are in real-time. It also
offers good security and has good protection from interference. Because Bluetooth
radio operates in globally available frequency band it is compatible in almost all over
the world.
Bluetooth history
In 1994 Ericsson launched an initiative to study a low-power, low-cost radio interface
to be used between mobile phones and their accessories. 1997 they approached
several manufacturers of portable electronic devices to discuss the development and
promotion of the short-range wireless technology. As a result of those discussions,
Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia and Toshiba formed the Bluetooth SIG (Special Interest
Group) in early 1998. The name Bluetooth comes from 10th century Viking king
Harald Blåtand (=Bluetooth), who however had nothing to do with wireless radio
techniques.
Bluetooth was publicly announced at May 20th 1998 and Bluetooth Specification 1.0
was released July 26th 1999. Current version of the specification is 1.1, and there is an
ongoing work to develop Bluetooth 2.0 and nowadays also 3Com, Lucent
technologies, Microsoft and Motorola have joined the SIG.
Bluetooth wireless technology
Network topology
Bluetooth supports both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint connections. With the
current specification, up to seven slaves can be set to communicate with one master
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device. These devices form a piconet, and piconets can be linked together in ad hoc
scatternets to allow communication among continually flexible configurations. All
devices in the same piconet have priority synchronization, but other devices can be set
to enter the piconet at any time. Master device controls all the traffic in the piconet
and is defined as a device that initiates the connection procedure to form a piconet.
Only one master device can exist in the same piconet.
The master's clock determines the timing in the frequency-hopping sequence on a
channel in a piconet. All devices participating on the same piconet adapt their internal
clock with a timing offset in order to synchronise to this frequency hopping sequence.
A Bluetooth device may participate in different piconets provided it is only active in
one piconet at a time. A device can act as a slave in different piconets, but as a master
in only a single piconet. For inter-piconet communication, a device selects the proper
master identity and clock offset in order to synchronise with the channel of the desired
piconet. The topology of a Bluetooth network is best described as a flexible, multiple
piconet structure.
Bluetooth radio technique
The Bluetooth radio is built into a small microchip. Radio uses the globally available
2.4 GHz frequency band (ISM – Industrial-Scientific-Medical band), that ensures
possibility of fast and reliable digital transmissions for both voice and data. Bluetooth
wireless technology uses frequency hopping to avoid interference from other signals
operating in ISM band. Normal working range of a Bluetooth device is 10 meters, but
increasing transmitting power of the sending device can increase the working range
up to 100 meters.
In Bluetooth radio link, each voice connection supports a 64 kbps synchronous link.
The asynchronous connection can support a 723 kbps asymmetric link in one
direction while allowing 57.6 kbps transfer rate in the other direction, or a 432.6 kbps
symmetric link for example to connect to the internet. The voice-coding scheme used
is the Continuous Variable Slope Delta (CVSD) modulation, that was chosen because
of its reliability in handling dropped and damaged voice samples. The symbol rate of
a Bluetooth link is 1 Mbps.
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Packet formats and packet types
All information exchanged between the master and slave devices in the Bluetooth
network is in the form of packets. The general packet consists of 3 entities that are:
An access code, a packet header and a payload.
The packet types are divided into 4 segments. Segment 1 is reserved for the four
control packets that are common to all link types, segment 2 is reserved for packets
occupying one time slot (SCO and ACL packets) and segments 3 and 4 are reserved
for ACL packets occupying three and five time slots respectively.
For Bluetooth wireless technology, number of error correction schemes are defined.
Forward Error Correction (FEC) has two types, 1/3 rate and 2/3 rate FEC. Another
error correction scheme defined is Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ).
Logical channels
There are five logical channels defined to allow transmission of different types of
information over the piconet. Logical channels are specified in the payload header.
These logical channels are divided into user channels for voice and data services and
control channels for signalling and synchronisation information. Link Control (LC)
channel and Link Manager (LM) channel are the two logical control channels, and US
user channel for synchronous data, UI user channel for isochronous data and UA user
channel for asynchronous data are the three logical user channels.
Timing and synchronisation
Bluetooth wireless technology uses a Time-Division Duplex (TDD) scheme where
each device alternately transmits and receives in a synchronous manner. The master’s
identity (BD_ADDR) determines the frequency hopping and the channel access code
in the piconet, while the master’s system clock determines the phase in the hopping
sequence and sets the timing.
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All Bluetooth devices have an internal system clock known as a native clock (CLKN),
which determines the transceiver timing for that device. Devices native clock is never
adjusted or turned off. Master’s clock of the piconet (CLK) determines the
synchronisation of the piconet, and is identical to the master’s native clock (CLKN).
In the piconet, each slave device adds a timing offset to its own native clock to
synchronise with the master clock. Timing offsets of the slave clocks are updated
every time a packet is received from the master, because it is important to maintain
the piconet synchronisation.
Access procedures
Page and inquiry procedures are used to establish a new connection in order to form a
piconet between Bluetooth devices. Master device uses the page procedure to activate
and connect to a slave device, if the slave’s address (BD_ADDR) is known. If slave’s
address is unknown, a connection is made using an inquiry procedure followed by a
page procedure. Inquiry is always used for a first-time connection between two
Bluetooth devices, since the address of the other party is unknown.
When paging is completed, a connection between two devices can be established.
This includes link, channel and connection establishment. Once a connection is
established, master device sends the first traffic packet called a poll packet, while the
slave responds with any type of packet.
System operation
When a device is in the connection state, a connection has been established
successfully and packets can be sent back and forth between master and slave devices.
There are four modes of operation in the connection state. A device can be in active
mode, sniff mode, hold mode or in park mode. These modes have varying levels of
power consumption, and in increasing order of power efficiency states are active,
sniff, hold and park.
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In active mode, a device actively takes part in the piconet channel by continuously
listening into master-to-slave time slots for packets containing slave device’s own
address AM_ADDR.
In sniff mode, a slave only listens in at predefined time slots called sniff time slots.
Slave can enter the sniff mode either when ordered by master device or if the slave
requests to be placed in the sniff mode. This can be for example if slave wants to
participate in another piconet.
Slave can be put in a hold mode during a connection, so that for a fixed time ACL
packets are not supported, but SCO packets still remain supported. This is used for
example in Bluetooth phones, when during the hold mode voice link is still supported
but text messages are not allowed. During hold mode, other necessary options, like
paging, inquiring etc. can take place.
If slave is in the park mode, it remains synchronised with the piconet but doesn’t
participate in the piconet. Park mode is useful if it is necessary to connect more than
seven slaves to a single master device. Park mode also reduces slaves power
consumption efficiently. Device is unparked by the master device that sends a
command on the beacon channel that includes the slave’s PM_ADDR and the
AM_ADDR that the slave will use. A number of slaves can be unparked
simultaneously.
By applying time multiplexing, a device can participate in two or more overlaying
piconets if multiple piconets cover the same area. In certain case a master-slave
switch can occur, for example because the master device wants to participate an
another piconet, which causes that the device can’t no longer be a master device to
any piconet. Master-slave switch causes a redefinition of the piconet, because the
piconet parameters are derived from the BD_ADDR and clock of the master, and
when the master device changes, the new parameters are obtained by the new master
device.
Bluetooth security
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Bluetooth wireless technology implements authentication and encryption techniques,
which ensure the user protection and information confidentiality. There are a several
number of entities that may be used to maintain networks security, such as a public
address (BD_ADDR) which is unique for each device, a Personal Identity Number
(PIN) familiar from mobile phones, authentication and encryption keys and
predefined algorithms for authentication and encryption.
The shared secret key used in authentication is a random number known as the link
key. It can be either temporary or semi-permanent. A temporary link key is used only
in the current session and it can’t be re-used at a later time. A semi-permanent link
key can be used in the authentication of several subsequent connections between the
devices sharing it. These devices are called paired devices. There are four different
types of link keys defined for different types of applications. Types are a unit key, a
combination key, an initialisation key and a temporary key.
For a first time connection between two unpaired devices, there is no link key defined
and an initialisation key is generated using the BD_ADDR of the claimant device and
a PIN code. This initialisation key secures the transfer of data between devices in the
pairing procedure and after the devices perform the link key exchange, the
initialisation key is disregarded. One device is capable to provide the unit key as the
link key for the connection. Typically it will be the device with restricted memory
capabilities, as then the device only has to store its own unit key. Otherwise a
contribution from both devices generates a combination key which offers a higher
security level than using only the unit key. All further connections between these two
devices will use the link key generated, but a new key can be generated if one of the
devices requests it. For each pair of devices that want to implement authentication and
encryption, the exchange of link keys has to be carries separately.
In Bluetooth devices, the authentication process uses a challenge and response
scheme, which means that a device willing to communicate with other device, must
first respond to a challenge verifying its knowledge of the current link key. After
successful authentication, devices are able to proceed communicating.
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The private key used in encryption is derived from the link key. Encryption key is
changed automatically every time a device enters the encryption mode. If encryption
is implemented in a device, there is an encryption algorithm that uses the encryption
key as input.
Bluetooth applications
Bluetooth makes possible to easily connect mobile phones, computers, headsets,
PDAs, cameras, printers and so on to each other without any cables.
Most common example of a Bluetooth application at this moment is the ultimate
headset. It allows hands free operation of a phone in the office, at home or in a car. It
can also be used with audio devices such as stereo set or a television as a wireless
headphone.
A 3-in-1 phone is a phone that works as a portable phone at home, as a mobile phone
when user is on the move and as a walkie-talkie when phone comes within range of
another mobile phone with built-in Bluetooth wireless technique. At home you pay
fixed line charge, when the phone is in cellular mode you pay cellular charge and
when two phones communicate using Bluetooth there is no telephony charge.
One application is also to use Bluetooth radio link as an Internet bridge for laptops
and PDAs via an access point from any location. A certain device called a LAN
access point is connected to a normal cable network and Bluetooth devices can
connect to that network through this access point.
Digianswer A/S has developed a large amount of Bluetooth products that have all
passed the formal qualification process. They already have a Bluetooth headset, an
embedded software stack, a Bluetooth PC-Card, a protocol analyser, two Bluetooth
radio-generations, a Bluetooth Software Site and a complete Bluetooth baseband in
their selection of products.
InnTechnology Inc. has developed a Bluetooth system that is aimed at the hospital
industry. Their system offers an in-room printing-copying-faxing solutions within the
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guestroom environment. This kind of a system can also be ported to office
environments and is estimated to become very popular solution for creating wireless
working environments.
In hospital environments Bluetooth wireless technology is also very useful for
example to a system, where doctors have PDAs and they can send and receive
information of for example patient’s conditions from any location in the hospital
area.
Bluetooth specification
The Bluetooth Specification is a standard containing the information required to
ensure that diverse devices supporting the Bluetooth wireless technology can
communicate with each other worldwide. The specification is divided into two parts,
that are Volume 1, Core and Volume 2, Profiles. The Core part specifies components
such as radio, baseband, link manager, service discovery protocol, transport layer and
interoperability with different communication protocols. The Profiles part specifies
the protocols and procedures for different types of Bluetooth applications. Current
version of the specification is v1.1.
Specifications of standard radio baseband, interface and software protocol have been
defined to enable a wide range of electronic devices to have Bluetooth functionality
and to ensure interoperability between devices made by different manufacturers.
The radio part of specification defines the frequency bands, channel arrangements and
transceiver characteristics for a Bluetooth system. The baseband part of specification
defines packet formats, physical and logical channels and different modes of
operation, which support the transfer of voice and data between Bluetooth devices.
The specification for the Bluetooth voice interface follows both ITU-T and GSM
recommendations. The Link Manager (LM) is a specified software that handles link
authentication, piconet management, link set-up and configuration.
The Bluetooth specification has two power levels defined: A lower power level that
covers the shorter personal area within a room, and a higher power level that can
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cover a medium range, such as within a home. Software controls and identity coding
built into each microchip ensure that only those units preset by their owners can
communicate.
Other short-range radio technologies
IrDA
IrDA as in Infrared Data Association is and industry sponsored organization that was
set up in 1993 to create standards for the hardware and software used in infrared
wireless communication links. In this special form of radio transmission, a focused
ray of light in the infrared frequency spectrum, measured in terahertz, or trillions of
hertz (cycles per second), is modulated with information and sent from a transmitter
to a receiver over a relatively short distance. This technology is familiar for example
from television remote controllers.
Infrared communication involves a transceiver in both devices that communicate.
This capability is provided by special microchips. One or both devices may require
special software so that the communication can be synchronized. In the IrDA-1.1
standard the maximum data size that can be transmitted is 2048 bytes and the
maximum transmission rate is 4 Mbps.
Infrared can also be used for longer interconnections and is a possibility for
interconnections between local area networks. In this case, the maximum effective
distance is about 2,5 kilometres and the maximum projected bandwidth is 16 Mbps.
Compared to Bluetooth, infrared is a line-of-sight light transmission, so it is sensitive
to fog and other atmospheric conditions. In good environment infrared has a longer
working range but Bluetooth has better protection from interference because it uses a
radio link.
WLAN
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An IEEE 802.11 standard specifies the technologies for Wireless LANs. WLAN is a
flexible data communication system that is used to connect to a local area network
through a wireless radio or infrared connection. WLAN is an extension or an
alternative to a traditional wired LAN, and it is very useful for example if it’s
necessary to connect to Internet with a notebook or a hand-held computer. Within last
seven years WLAN has gained strong popularity in many areas, such as the health-
care, retail, manufacturing, warehousing and universities.
WLANs use electromagnetic airwaves, either radio or infrared, to transfer data from
one point to another without relaying in any wired connections. Radio waves are often
referred as radio carriers because they perform the function of delivering energy to a
remote receiver. The data being transmitted is superimposed on the radio carrier so
that it can be extracted at the receiving end. This is generally referred to as
modulation of the carrier by the information being transmitted. Once the data is
modulated onto the radio carrier, the radio signal occupies more than a single
frequency since the frequency or the bit rate of the modulating information is added to
the carrier.
Typically a WLAN device, called an access point, is connected to the wired network
by using standard Ethernet cable. The access point receives, buffers and transmits data
between the WLAN and the wired network. The working range of one access point
can be increased or decreased by using different kinds of antennas and locations.
WLAN is quite sensitive to atmospheric conditions like rain or fog and also buildings
and other obstacles.
WLAN is maybe the most often mentioned competitor to Bluetooth, but there are
several cases that separate these techniques. They use the same frequency, 2.4 GHz,
but Bluetooth changes frequency at the speed of 1600 hops per second so it has an
advantage over WLAN techniques like 802.11b. Because Bluetooth device is
normally designed to communicate within the 10-meter range, its power consumption
is much lower than WLAN devices have. Bluetooth chips are also bit smaller so they
are more usable when the size of the device has to be as small as possible. Bluetooth
also enables simple, spontaneous wireless connectivity as WLANs are usually
designed to provide continuous connectivity.
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WPAN
WPAN (Wireless Personal Area Network) is an IEEE 802.15 standard that is
supposed to be ready in December 2001. It is a low-cost, short-range and low-power
wireless system like Bluetooth, and it actually is based on the lower layers of
Bluetooth. Applications where WPAN is used are quite the same that Bluetooth has,
but the biggest difference is that WPAN will be fully compatible with the IEEE
802.11 standard.
WPAN sets different Quality of Service (QoS) –demands for different kinds of
connection classes. This is useful when developing devices with lowest possible
power consumption.
There is also a task group that concentrates on faster WPAN networks that are capable
to data transfer rate of at least 20 Mbps. This standard is supposed to be ready in the
beginning of year 2002.
HomeRF
HomeRF stands for Home Radio Frequency. It is a home networking standard
developed by Proxim Inc. that combines the IEEE 802.11b and Digital Enhanced
Cordless Telecommunication (DECT) portable phone standards into a single system.
HomeRF uses a frequency-hopping technique to deliver data at up to 1.6 Mbps speed
over distances up to five meters. That is too short range for most business
applications, but very suitable for the home market that it was specifically developed
for. This very short range is also the biggest difference compared to Bluetooth
networks, and that is why HomeRF really isn’t a big competitor to Bluetooth.
RFID
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is an AIDC (Automatic Identification and
Data Collection) technology. A basic RFID system consists of three components that
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are an antenna or a coil, a transceiver and a transponder. The object of any RFID
system is to carry data in suitable transponders, generally known as tags, and to
retrieve data, by machine-readable means, at suitable time and place to satisfy
particular application needs. Data in a tag can provide information about an item in
manufacture, goods in transit, a location, identity of a vehicle and so on.
RFID allows a non-contact reading and consequently is effective in manufacturing
and other hostile environments where barcode labels could not survive. RFID has a
wide range of markets including livestock identification and automated vehicle
identification (AVI) systems because RFID is very useful in tracking moving objects.
RFID technology has become a primary player in automated data collection,
identification and analysis systems worldwide.
The antenna of an RFID device emits radio signals to activate the tag and to read and
write data to it. There are antennas in variety of shapes and sizes, for example antenna
can be built into a door frame to receive tag data from persons or things that pass the
door, or mounted on an interstate toll booth to monitor traffic passing by on a
freeway. Most often the antenna is packaged with the transceiver and a decoder to
became a reader, which can be configured either as a handheld or a fixed-mount
device. Depending upon the reader’s power output and the radio frequency used, the
range of radio waves emitted by the reader can vary from about two centimetres to 30
meters. After the reader has decoded the data it passes it to the host computer for
processing.
There are plenty of different RFID tag types. Animal tracking tags, inserted beneath
the skin, can be as small as a pencil lead in diameter and 3 centimetres in length. Tags
can be screw-shaped to identify trees or other wooden items or credit card shaped for
use in access controlling etc. RFID tags are categorized as either active or passive.
Active tags are powered by an internal battery and are typically read/write –devices.
An active tag’s memory size can be even up to 1 MB. Active tags generally have a
longer read-range, but are bigger, cost more and have limited operational life than
passive tags.
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Passive tags obtain operating power generated from the reader. Passive tags are much
lighter, less expensive and offer a virtually unlimited operational lifetime compared to
active tags, but passive tags require a higher-powered reader. Read-only tags are
usually passive and are programmed with a unique set of data that cannot be
modified. These read-only tags most often operate as license plates into a database, in
the same way as linear barcodes containing modifiable product-specific information.
RFID systems can also be categorized by frequency ranges used. Low-frequency
systems that work in frequencies from 30 kHz to 500 kHz have short reading ranges
and lower system costs and are commonly used in security access, asset tracking and
animal identification applications. High-frequency systems work in frequencies from
850 MHz to 2,5 GHz and offer long read ranges (greater than 25 meters) and high
reading speeds. High-frequency systems are used for applications like a railroad car
tracking and automatic toll collection. But as said, higher performance incurs higher
system costs.
Comparing RFID to Bluetooth shows that they both have same kinds of advantages.
As both being radio techniques, they work with no line-of-sight and through different
substances. RFID is very widely used and is also developing all the time. In a short
time Bluetooth will not be a threat to RFID in this kind of manufactory identification
use, because RF identification is yet more exact and a bit faster than using Bluetooth
systems, but this may change in the future.
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Sources:
[1] The Official Bluetooth SIG website, http://www.bluetooth.com
[2] Ericsson Education Online, http://learning.ericsson.net/bluetooth
[3] Specification of the Bluetooth System,
http://www.bluetooth.com/developer/specification/Bluetooth_11_Specifications_Boo
k.pdf
[4] Bluetooth Resource Center, http://www.palowireless.com/bluetooth/
[5] Bluetooth applications in the hospitality industry,
http://www.hotel-technology.com/projects/bluetooth/
[6] http://www.wlana.com/learn/educate.htm
[7] WhatIs.Com, http://www.whatis.com
[8] IEEE 802.15 Working Group for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs),
http://www.ieee802.org/15/
[9] HomeRF website, http://www.homerf.org
[10] Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) home page,
http://www.aimglobal.org/technologies/rfid/
Other related links:
Ericsson Technology Licensing, http://www.ericsson.com/bluetooth/
Bluetooth tutorial, http://www.palowireless.com/infotooth/tutorial.asp
Bluetooth ™ Related Top web sites list, http://pro.topsitelists.com/bestsites/bluetooth/
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