Mesh Networking over Bluetooth Low Energy for IoT devices

Project type: Individual project (Master Thesis) Duration: One Semester (180 Hours) Contact: Ali Nikoukar (G.29, R.308)

Introduction Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), is an optional low-power wireless interface added to the Bluetooth 4.0 specifications in 2010 [1]. It is aimed at small, battery-powered devices such as sensors, making it an ideal candidate for applications around the IoT. However, Bluetooth still does not support mesh networking [2]. Mesh networks allow devices to pass messages from node to node, rather than every node communicating directly with each other or a central controller. It means that networks can include devices that might be out of the wireless communications and overcome the range limitation in BLE. Moreover, to connect the BLE devices to the Internet we need gateway devices such as a smartphone. The smartphone translate the BLE packets to IP packets so they can communicate through the Internet. But, for true IoT devices BLE needs to support IPv6 natively [3]. As can be seen in Fig.1 employing IPv6 makes BLE devices capable of connecting the internet through the BLE edge routers.

Fig 1. IPv6 enabled Bluetooth network

Objectives • Evaluate the feasibility of Bluetooth mesh network for IoT applications

• Integration of IPv6 enabled Bluetooth Low Energy for cloud connectivity

Pre-requirement • Basic knowledge of wireless networking and routing protocols

• C++ programing language

References 1. Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) 2. Raza, S., Misra, P., He, Z., & Voigt, T. (2016). Building the Internet of Things with

bluetooth smart. Ad Hoc Networks. 3. Nieminen, J., Savolainen, T., Isomaki, M., Patil, B., Shelby, Z., & Gomez, C. (2015).

IPv6 over bluetooth (r) low energy (No. RFC 7668).

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