An AODV-Based Routing Scheme for Large-Scale Bluetooth Low-Energy Mesh Networks

The Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) Mesh Networking Specifications enable the many-to-many topology over BLE. However, it adopts a managed flooding technique that may lead to network congestion, especially in large-scale networks. Herein, we devise and implement a routing solution based on the Ad-hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol to adapt to the network demands and dynamics, allowing messages to be routed directly towards the destination without flooding. Intermediate relays are selected using a combined metric that exploits the best combination of the number of intermediate hops and RSSI. With the addition of the route maintenance and route breakage detection functionality, efficient reliable bidirectional paths between network nodes can thus be achieved. The proposed routing solution provides efficient utilization of network resources by decreasing the amount of traffic, energy consumption, and packet loss for large-scale networks.