A Mathematical Framework for the Performance Analysis of Bluetooth with Enhanced Data Rate

Abstract—In this paper, we present a mathematical framework that permits a detailed performance analysis of Bluetooth connections in fading channels. Conversely to most part of the literature, we distinguish between the transmission of useful and duplicate frames, which are handled in a different manner by the receiving unit. To this end, we define a two–state Markov Chain and we apply the renewal reward theory to determine the expressions of the throughput, energy efficiency and delay performance of the link. Although the model can be applied to any version of Bluetooth specifications, as a proof of concept we provide an accurate performance analysis of an asymmetric Bluetooth v2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) connection in typical propagation environments. The analysis reveals that best performance are (almost) always obtained by using the longest baseband frames transmitted at 2Mbps in the low–to–medium signal–to–noise ratio (SNR) region, and at 3Mbps in the high SNR region. Furthermore, we observed that it is more fruitful assigning the master role to the destination unit. The model, hence, proves to be a valuable tool to gain insights on the aspects that have a major impact on the system performance.