Inter-Piconet Scheduling in Bluetooth Scatternets

Bluetooth enables wireless communication via ad-hoc networks. The basic topology (piconet) is a collection of slaves controlled by a master. A scatternet is a multihop network of piconets. Efficient scatternet data flow requires design of inter-piconet scheduling algorithms. This paper presents and evaluates a load adaptive scheduling algorithm based on the Bluetooth hold mode. An OPNET model of a Bluetooth scatternet has been developed in order to evaluate the performance of the algorithm. We present the model and analytic results, used to verify the performance of the model. Then, we evaluate the performance of various intrapiconet scheduling algorithms. Finally, we present simulation results regarding inter-piconet scheduling and show that the proposed algorithm outperforms scheduling algorithms using the sniff mode.