Modeling of the data transportation network of a multi-hop data-content-sharing home network

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the implementation of indoor Bluetooth communication multi-hop networks. Since the performance of such networks determines the range of applications that they can support, the performance of Bluetooth wireless multi-hop networks is a common topic of interest. Communication network models are widely used to estimate the performance of networks in many different aspects. This paper focuses on one of the aspects, i.e., the time performance of the data transportation network of a Bluetooth multi-hop home network, and provides a novel empirical model for latency in multi-hop networks with asynchronous links when links are active. The model offers a sharp estimation of the latency added with every hop in the communication such that electronics product designers and network managers can effectively run time-constrained applications in this type of network. The model is based on the results from experiments carried out on a real test bed. The test bed includes Bluetooth nodes and proprietary middleware at the HCI (Host Controller Interface) level of communication. The experimental results show that the time performance worsens with an increasing number of hops in the communication and additionally provide evidence of the quadratic dependence on the number of hops exhibited by the latency 1.