Device and Service Discovery in Bluetooth Networks

Abstract: In view of Bluetooth?s growing popularity a lot of research is being done to improve the performance of Bluetooth. Most of the research being performed prerequisites that a connection has already been made. Due to the frequency hopping spread spectrum used by Bluetooth the connection establishment is not as easy as it seams. Two processes have been derived to bridge the frequency discrepancies between devices, inquiry and page. In this thesis, we study the inquiry and page processes and the time it takes to complete a connection with no, one or two voice channels present at the initiating device. We have found the times to complete the processes to be lengthy at best, unreasonably long if there is voice traffic present. Through optimisation, we have decreased the mean time to connect. We propose some changes to the default values of a few time outs and variables, which yields a substantial improvement in performance, especially in the case when there is voice traffic present. The changes are in the software only, no changes in hardware are necessary. After a connection is made a client may want to start using the services of the device it is connected to. This is another topic of this thesis. Bluetooth does not provide means of accessing a service, only discovering it. Thus, there is the need for higher-level protocols for accessing services. We have investigated some of the service discovery protocols currently available.