BlueSkyNet: BLE Multi-Hop Network Management Architecture

Abstract

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is aimed for Internet of Things (IoT) devices with limited battery capacity and small bandwidth. Despite the increasing number of IoT devices and the improving performance of BLE, the usage model is still limited to point-to-point with no mobility. This limitation prevents the devices to spread across a large field or a home. While multi-hop technologies had been studied and commercialized, they do not fully take advantage of the BLE's low-power feature; and their configurations cannot easily be changed once the network is deployed. We have designed an architecture called BlueSkyNet. It allows network administrators to form and manage a BLE multi-hop network that allows nodes to be mobile. It takes advantage of the improving performance of BLE, and allows the network configurations to be modified in a software-defined way.