Performance Analysis of Neighbor Discovery Process in Bluetooth Low-Energy Networks

Abstract

To support various Internet of Things (IoT) applications, the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) standard specifies a wide range of parameter values for the neighbor discovery process (NDP). The parameter values used during neighbor discovery directly affect the performance of the NDP. Therefore, an optimal parameter setting is essential to achieve the best tradeoff between discovery latency and energy consumption. An analytical model can offer a beneficial guideline for such a parameter selection. In this paper, we propose a general model for analyzing the performance of NDP in BLE networks. In the model, the operations of the scanner and the advertiser, which are two main components of NDP, are expressed on the discrete-time axis. Based on the Chinese Remainder Theorem (CRT), the discovery latency and energy consumption of advertiser are derived. The numerical results from our model are almost the same as the simulation results, for any parameter values specified by the standard. When considering that BLE is one of candidate communication technologies for IoT, the proposed model is expected to be very useful in setting the default or initial values of NDP parameters for various IoT applications.