Patent Application
20160014550
Benefit is claimed to Indian Provisional Application No. 3398/CHE/2014 titled “METHOD FOR PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT OF BLE SYSTEMS” filed on 9 Jul. 2014, which is herein incorporated in its entirety by reference for all purposes.
The present invention generally relates to wireless communication system and more particularly relates to method and system for dynamically managing BLE communications with optimal performance under varying wireless conditions.
In current scenario of wireless communications, power consumption is a key factor impacting the Smart Phones in today's world. Bluetooth low energy (BLE) is ecology designed to operate with various health care and personal area network devices etc. The BLE devices are generally accessed via a centralized entity such as but not limited to smart phone.
Even within the systems using BLE, a large scope exists to reduce the current consumption, improve the capacity and performance of the existing BLE based systems.
The Link Layer BLE connection and configuration parameters exchanged during connection establishment between a master device and a slave device are rarely dynamically adapted.
This limits the optimal operating condition achievable for a BLE system. If the optimal operating conditions are not achieved it will result in less data packets being exchanged than the system can support. This will result in underutilizing the actual system. Additionally data storage requirements on the slave side and power consumption would increase due to repeated and increased wake ups for data Tx.
Further, in a BLE system having multiple slave devices connected to a BLE master device (E.g. smart phone), power consumption is not considered while selecting the connection initiation and data transfer time instances. This results in increased power consumption for the smart phone and the slave devices. The challenge lies in adjusting the operational timing parameters for multiple slaves for which master initiates connections with different connection parameters and at different time instances.
Additionally, BLE system suffers from various poor network conditions such as interference due to other network systems, congestion etc. These conditions can severely impact reliability and longevity of a BLE connection.
BLE slaves transmit data in allowed power range of (−20 dBm to +4 dBm (for 4 dBm permission needs to be taken from approval body)). But most of the BLE devices used for body/personal area networks are very close to the master BLE device. Hence, the connections do not need very high transmission power. Transmission at reduced power results both in less current consumption and less interference but these connections can be more susceptible to losses.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and system, which overcomes the challenges as mentioned above, and provides more stable and secure BLE ecosystem.
An embodiment of the present disclosure describes a method for dynamically managing communications in a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) network. The method comprises: obtaining one or more BLE connection parameters of one or more slave devices in communication with a master device; detecting change information in the BLE network; dynamically determining one or more updated BLE connection parameters of the one or more slave devices based on the one or more BLE connection parameters and the change information; and controlling the communication between the one or more slave devices and the master device according to the dynamically determined one or more updated BLE connection parameters.
The one or more BLE connection parameters may include the number of packet data units (PDU) to be sent in a connection interval in the BLE network, and the dynamically determining the one or more updated BLE connection parameters may comprise updating the number of PDU to be sent in a connection interval in the BLE network.
The controlling the communication may comprise disconnecting a BLE connection of an application from among a plurality of applications using the BLE network and running on the master device according to a pre-defined priority level of each of the plurality of applications.
The method may further comprises displaying a list of applications using the BLE network and running on the master device; receiving a user input for selecting an application; and disconnecting a BLE network of the selected application.
The one or more BLE connection parameters may include connection intervals of the one or more slave devices , and the dynamically determining the one or more updated BLE connection parameters may comprises analyzing the connection intervals of a first set of slave devices having established BLE communication channel with the master device, and updating the analyzed connection intervals.
The connection intervals may be updated in a way that connection trigger points for the connection intervals of a second set of slave devices attempting to establish communication channels with the master device do not overlap with the connection trigger points for the connection intervals of the first set of salve devices.
The connection intervals may be updated in a way that connection trigger points for the connection intervals have a gap of at least an inter frame spacing time (TIFS).
The one or more BLE connection parameters may include information regarding at least one from among network congestion and channel interference; and the dynamically determining the one or more updated BLE connection parameters may comprise optimizing connection intervals in order to achieve one from among a reduced current consumption of power for lossy channel condition and speedy data backlog clearance for lossless channel condition.
The change information in the BLE network may include information regarding channel interference and the one or more updated BLE connection parameters include updated transmission power consumption.
Another embodiment of the present disclosure describes a device for dynamically managing communications in a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) network. The device operating as a master device in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) network may comprise communication interface and a controller configured to: obtain one or more BLE connection parameters of one or more slave devices in communication with a master device through the communication interface, detect change information in the BLE network, dynamically determine one or more updated BLE connection parameters of the one or more slave devices based on the one or more BLE connection parameters and the change information, and control the communication interface to communicate with the one or more slave devices according to the dynamically determined one or more updated BLE connection parameters.
Still another embodiment of the present disclosure describes a system for dynamically managing communications in a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) network. The system may comprise one or more slave devices; and one or more master devices configured to determine one or more connection parameters of the one or more slave devices, wherein the one or more master devices dynamically configures the one or more connection parameters for providing optimal performance during the wireless communication.
The aforementioned aspects and other features of the present invention will be explained in the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
The embodiments of the present disclosure will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, the present disclosure is not limited to the embodiments. The present disclosure can be modified in various forms. Thus, the embodiments of the present disclosure are only provided to explain more clearly the present disclosure to the ordinarily skilled in the art of the present disclosure. In the accompanying drawings, like reference numerals are used to indicate like components.
The specification may refer to “an”, “one” or “some” embodiment(s) in several locations. This does not necessarily imply that each such reference is to the same embodiment(s), or that the feature only applies to a single embodiment. Single features of different embodiments may also be combined to provide other embodiments.
As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless expressly stated otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “includes”, “comprises”, “including” and/or “comprising” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof. As used herein, the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations and arrangements of one or more of the associated listed items.
Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this disclosure pertains. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the relevant art and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein.
An embodiment of the present disclosure describes a method for dynamically configurable link layer parameter selection scheme, wherein the method comprises dynamically configuring the number of data PDU's being sent in an connection interval, and increasing the system scalability while providing desired operating conditions (such as expected delay, throughput etc.).
Another embodiment of the present disclosure describes a mathematical model for computing current consumption and expected transmission delay; allowing BLE master to intelligently select Link layer connection parameters. The chosen connection parameters are dynamically configured based on changing network conditions, reliability requirements, and channel interference etc. The embodiment enables the power sensitive master device 101 (such as smart phone, coin cell operated devices) to optimally use the battery power. This also allows the BLE devices (such as master device, slave device) to efficiently utilize the BLE device capacity (e.g. transmission of packets in an optimally spaced connection interval) while achieving a desired operating schema.
In one embodiment, the master device may comprise of a BLE shaper module (not shown in figure), and a BLE overload indicator (not shown in figure). The BLE shaper module enables the master device 101 to control the connection parameters dynamically to increase the capacity for handling relatively larger number BLE communication channel. The BLE overload indicator module provides input to the master device 101 on feasible combination of simultaneously active connections. Additionally, the master device 101 is also compatible to adapt and manage active BLE connections according to the interference in the wireless communication.
In
In
In particular, in
In case re-configuration of the connection parameter does not assist in providing resources for additional BLE connection, the user is provided an option to choose the slave devices/wearable devices with which the user wishes to be in active BLE connection. In particular, master device 210 displays a list of slave devices in communication and receives a user input for selecting one from among the list. The user input may be an input for selecting slave devices to be in active BLE connection or an input for selecting salve devices to be disconnected from BLE connection. Master device 210 may comprise a display to display the list of slave devices and a user interface to receive such user input. The user input may be a touch input on the list.
At step 301, a new BLE connection is requested by a communication device (i.e. slave device 102). Master device 101 may receive such request for a new BLE connection. Master device 101 may comprise a controller and a display, which may be implemented as hardware.
At step 302, information related to number of slaves connected with controller and their connection parameters are provided to a mathematical model module. The mathematical model module may be implemented in the controller. The connection parameters may include at least one from among information regarding time slots used for data traffic of slave devices. The information regarding time slots may include start time and end time of each of the time slots.
At step 303, the mathematical model module determines necessary connection parameter to be tuned for having new BLE connection with desired operating conditions.
At step 304, a check is performed to determine whether the controller has sufficient resources to manage new connection. The check may be performed by the controller.
If yes, at step 305, connection parameter update is triggered by the controller for the running BLE connections. If no, at step 306, the user is being informed that the controller's capacity is not enough to be used by the running BLE connections, so new connection cannot be established.
a depicts a scenario used in the prior art where the connection trigger points (such as 11, 12 & 13) are spaced at variable intervals by the master device 101 for different slave devices 102 resulting in reduced sleep cycle. Since the connection interval between the trigger points are not optimally or equally spaced, this leads to more power consumption during multi-slave communication. This also allows accommodating more slave connections when required.
b depicts an embodiment of the present disclosure where the connection trigger points are spaced at equal interval or spaced at optimal interval by the master device 101 for different slave devices 102 resulting in improved sleep cycle and reduced power consumption. In this embodiment, the present disclosure describes power aware multi-slave operational method for dynamically managing BLE communications in a wireless communication network. For the master device 101 having multi-slave BLE system, it is very much important to optimally use the battery power. The method disclosed in the present disclosure helps the master device 101 to align the data transmission instances for various connections in a way to reduce the device's state transitions from idle (no radio activity) state to active (transmitting or receiving data state) state while maintaining the BLE standard compliance for inter transmission intervals. The master device 101 at first analyzes the connection interval of all active slave devices 102 to avoid overlap of connection interval trigger point with the new slave device 102.
Then, the master device 101 chooses the connection interval trigger point for new slave device 102 with a gap of at least packet handling time (which includes transmitting time tx, receiving time rx, and/or processing time) from the previous trigger point. The embodiment aligns all the new connection interval trigger point using proprietary mechanism to have optimal current consumption (less radio transition) for the master device 101.
a depicts a scenario of bursty loss occurring during data transfer in the prior art. Conventional BLE system suffers from various poor network conditions such as interference owing to other network systems, congestion etc. These condition in turn severely impacts reliability and longevity of BLE connection.
b depicts dynamic adaptation scheme according to an embodiment of the present disclosure to overcome the channel errors that occurs in bursts. The channel errors bring out the importance of increasing the connection interval value (along with aggregation) in countering these bursty losses.
Intuitively, larger connection intervals during a loss episode means reduced number of unsuccessful transmission attempts (resulting in reduced current consumption for delay tolerant applications), while a smaller connection interval during good channel helps getting the backlogged data cleared quickly. Similarly in case of critical application such as health care, transmission power of the BLE device can be increased to achieve the desired reliability and data transfer.
A standard approach to model bursty channel losses is to use a simple Markovian channel model. At point 1 of
a depicts an embodiment where BLE system 100 dynamically manages BLE communications between the master device and single slave device. The system 100 detects no interference and optimal channel conditions. In this case, the transmission power is reduced for data transmission from the slave device 102 to the master device 101. The master device 101 transmits data at the power of 0 dBm whereas the slave device 102 transmits/communicates at the reduced power of −8 dBm.
b depicts another embodiment where BLE system 100 dynamically manages BLE communications between the one or more master devices 101 and the one or more slave devices 102. The system 100 detects interference and bad channel conditions. In this case, the corrective actions are taken and appropriate transmission power is determined for smooth transmission of data from the slave device 102 to the master device 101. This method enables the BLE system 100 to reduce current consumption during transmission of data from the slave device 102 to the master device 101. Since the interference is detected during the BLE communication between the slave device 102 and the master device 101, the BLE communication occurs at an optimum power without going for reduction in power.
In one embodiment, the dynamic configuration of the one or more connection parameter of the one or more slave devices comprises configuring the number of packet data units (PDU) to be sent in a connection interval.
In one embodiment, the interactively managing one or more connections comprises purging one or more applications running on the one or more master devices corresponding the one or more slave devices based on throughput requirement, pre-defined priority level to the each of the applications or user input.
The present disclosure enables a device such as smartphone, wearable etc. to intelligently configure/tune the BLE link layer parameters to the best performance tradeoffs in dynamic environment. In one exemplary embodiment, the master device such as smartphone is connected to a single slave. The smartphone dynamically changes the connection interval on observing bursty losses.
In another exemplary embodiment, the smartphone can change the connection parameters of the ongoing connections to make room/space for a new connection. For instance, if the Smartphone is connected to two BLE Slaves (say, Heart rate sensor and EEG) and user wants to attach a new sensor (say, pedometer) then, the present disclosure enables the smartphone to modify the connection intervals and offsets between anchor points of the ongoing connections to accommodate the new connection.
The present disclosure provides the following advantages:
Although the disclosure of method and system for dynamically managing BLE communications in a wireless communication network has been described in connection with the embodiments of the present disclosure illustrated in the accompanying drawings, it is not limited thereto. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various substitutions, modifications and changes may be made thereto without departing from the scope and spirit of the disclosure.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3398/CHE/2014 | Jul 2014 | IN | national |
