Adaptive Transmission Power for Robust and Energy-Efficient Bluetooth Communication in Dynamic Environments
Ziyao Zhou, Hen‐Wei Huang · 2025
Wireless communication is ubiquitous in our daily life, with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) being a key protocol in the mobile Internet of Things (IoT). However, BLE data throughput is highly sensitive to signal quality, and conventional approaches often maximize transmission power (TXP) to maintain high link quality, which will lead to energy inefficiency and will further reduce peripheral devices’ battery lifetime. In this work, we implement a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control loop between a central and a peripheral device to dynamically reconfigure the peripheral device’s TXP based on real-time feedback from the central device’s Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI). Our findings indicate that data throughput significantly declines only when RSSI is near the central device’s sensitivity threshold (-89 dBm for nRF52833). By maintaining a central device with an RSSI of -60 dBm in a varying distance ranging from 0 to 50 meters, our PID-controlled system reduces power consumption by 2.5 times compared to a non-PID peripheral device operating at a fixed TXP of 20 dBm without compromising data throughput. In addition, compared to a fixed TXP of -10 dBm, the PID system greatly mitigates the risk of disconnection and drop of data rate, with only a 20% increase of power consumption.