A reconfigurable scatternet formation and maintenance scheme with heterogeneous services for smart Bluetooth devices

Bluetooth Inter-piconet communication necessitates deployment of relay nodes. However, network performance is affected with the increased count of relays due to high control overhead. Moreover, the mobility and power failure of a relay node may partition the network, which affects scatternet performance. This research aims to maintain scatternet connectivity without employing redundant relays. This paper presents a Scatternet Formation and Maintenance (SFM) scheme that strives to sustain scatternet connectivity. To minimize control and flooding overhead, SFM removes redundant relays without disconnecting the scatternet. Moreover, backup relays are employed to avoid network partitioning. To avoid a link disconnection, Bluetooth devices in SFM continuously keep track of movement and residual energy. A moving node notifies its master before disconnecting any communication link to make an alternative arrangement for a backup. A backup relay is activated to maintain existing communication links. In addition, backup relay activation improves the performance of synchronous connection oriented and asynchronous connection less links. The proposed technique also reduces control messaging overhead for relay optimization from O(n²) to O(n). Simulation results validate effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed scheme for inter-piconet communication.