Connection-Based Bluetooth Mesh Network as a Low Energy Solution for Off-Grid Data Networks
Rasmus Thue Elkjaer Dvinge, Adam Stalmach, Lazaros Nalpantidis · 2019
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is the low-cost and low-power addition to the Bluetooth family envisioned for the Internet of Things (IoT). In the academic community Mesh protocols on top of the BLE topology are currently being researched. Recently, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) released a flooding-based solution. Even though the usage of a mesh network is highly dependent on the use case, the connection-based solution has a low power consumption in a scenario where some end-to-end delay is allowed in the network. Such application could be sensor networks where some lag is allowed in the data collected from sensors. This paper presents a study of the current drain in a connection-based routing mesh topology called FruityMesh and discusses its possibilities for use in off-grid environments.