A flexible scatternet-wide scheduling algorithm for Bluetooth networks

Bluetooth is a promising technology which enables the design of low-power, small-sized, low-cost radios that can be embedded in existing portable devices. Due to the limitation of a single channel capacity, scatternet techniques are proposed to increase the communication bandwidth. However, since a bridge may be shared by several piconets, simultaneous polling of the bridge may result in bridge conflicts, and then seriously degrade the system performance. Thus, the potential of the scatternet may not be realized without a good scatternet-wide scheduling algorithm. In this paper, we propose a flexible scatternet-wide scheduling (FSS) scheme to address the problems associated with scatternet-wide traffic scheduling. The proposed scheme is based on a switch-table concept to avoid bridge conflicts. Further, the switch-table can be dynamically adjusted based on the traffic load to improve the system performance. Simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithms. Compared to the static scheme, the FSS scheme can significantly improve the system throughput and reduce the packet transmission delay.