Speeding Up Bluetooth Mesh

Bluetooth has constantly evolved from its cradle in 1997 to the last 5.2 version in 2020. With each update and amendment, it has gained in speed, range, and versatility. One of the latest introductions was the Bluetooth Mesh Profile (BMP) making it a technology suitable for a wide variety of applications. Nevertheless, BMP was designed to maintain the compatibility with Bluetooth version 4 devices already deployed in the market. This imposes some restrictions that place Bluetooth Mesh under other competing technologies like Zigbee or Thread in terms of throughput performance. In this paper we propose two mechanisms to overcome these limitations and take advantage of the new extended advertising capabilities introduced with Bluetooth 5. These mechanisms are presented as modifications to the current protocol stack to allow the transmission of larger data structures. Thus, it is possible to boost the throughput of Bluetooth Mesh making it suitable to more demanding applications like, for example, image transmission. The first proposal is designed as an adaptation layer to avoid modifying the standard in its current form. The second makes minimal changes to the frame structure at the different layers enabling the user to accommodate possible encapsulations (i.e., tunneling) without incurring IPv6-layer fragmentation. We have analyzed both solutions and compared them with the current BMP in terms of throughput, delay, and energy consumption for different channel conditions and network size. The results show that except for very small messages or poor channel conditions the proposals improve the throughput and delay of the current BMP.