Modeling the Trade-off between Throughput and Reliability in a Bluetooth Low Energy Connection

Abstract

The use of Bluetooth Low Energy in low-range Internet of Things systems is growing exponentially. Similar to other wireless communication protocols, throughput and reliability are two key performance metrics in Bluetooth Low Energy communications. However, electromagnetic interference from various sources can heavily affect the performance of wireless devices, leading to dropped throughput and unreliable communication. Therefore, there is a need for both theoretical and practical studies capable of quantifying the BLE communication performance, e.g. throughput and reliability, subject to interference. In this paper, a mathematical model to predict throughput of a BLE connection under interference is derived first, and linked to the reliability model we developed in [1]. After that, extensive practical experiments are performed in various scenarios to sufficiently validate the theoretical results from both models. Finally, the trade-off between throughput and reliability is investigated through the validated models to give some inside properties of BLE communications. The similarity between the theoretical results and the experimental ones highlights the accuracy of the proposed throughput and reliability models. Hence, the two models can be used to explore the performance of various BLE designs or deployments from diverse perspectives.