Architecture and performance of an embedded IP Bluetooth personal area network

The emergence of short-range low power RF communication technologies such as Bluetooth are expanding the model of personal communications to include the personal area network (PAN). This PAN will integrate with larger wide area networks (WAN) to provide network connectivity and Internet access to and between, individuals and devices. In this paper, we describe an architecture and present link performance results for a Bluetooth PAN embedded within a wireless LAN (WLAN) environment. This type of architecture can bridge the PAN to wide-area IP networks, allowing information access and distribution across ad hoc mobile environments. We investigate the link performance of Bluetooth in the presence of WLAN radio interference and present measured link performance results of such an embedded system.