On the suitability of Bluetooth 5 for the Internet of Things: Performance and scalability analysis
Stefan Böcker, Christian Arendt, Christian Wietfeld · 2017
The challenges related to the large-scale deployment of the Internet of Things to enable a wide range of application use cases have received significant attention. A number of communication technologies have been and are still developed ranging from evolved existing technologies such as 4G, WiFi or WPAN technologies to the much hyped 5G networks. Against the background of the on-going discussion on the most suitable technologies the Bluetooth Special Interest Group has proposed the next generation Bluetooth 5 specification and claims to be ready for the Internet of Things as well: mainly by increasing the maximum communication range and adapting the corresponding data rates. In this context, this paper evaluates the suitability of Bluetooth 5 for realistic application activity levels and interference scenarios, based on analytical models and validated by frequency hopping algorithm simulations. The performance results demonstrate that Bluetooth 5 is a valid technology candidate for implementation of Internet of Things applications, provided that activity level, expected coverage areas and the interference situation within the ISM band are carefully considered in the deployment process.