Dynamic topology construction in bluetooth scatternets

Abstract

We propose a topology construction algorithm for Bluetooth devices in which a piconet or a scatternet is assumed to be a dynamic network structure. A new node can join the scatternet or an existing node can shut down at any point of time, without affecting the rest of the topology. The algorithm works bottom up by first combining individual nodes into small piconets, the small piconets then joining to form larger piconets. Finally, the large piconets join to form a scatternet. All these operations are conducted in a way such that none of the nodes need to act as a coordinator. No a priori information about the total number of nodes in the network is required for successful topology construction. © Springer-Verlag 2004.