Bluetooth, while it is certainly not the universal solution to all wireless needs, addresses many of the performance requirements specific to medical applications, and it is a particularly good fit in use models demanding high mobility, long battery life, and no infrastructure support. Bluetooth does more than simply eliminate cables; it provides access to a wide range of standard devices and communications options, including the formation of small networks. Bluetooth enables additional communications links by providing access to wide-area networking through cellular phone data communications as well as traditional Ethernet local-area networks.Bluetooth, the new technology named after the 10th Century Danish King Harold Bluetooth, is a hot topic among wireless developers. This article will provide an introduction to the technology
Bluetooth was designed to allow low bandwidth wireless connections to become so simple to use that they seamlessly integrate into your daily life. A simple example of a Bluetooth application is updating the phone directory of your mobile phone. Today, you would have to either manually enter the names and phone numbers of all your contacts or use a cable or IR link between your phone and your PC and start an application to synchronize the contact information. With Bluetooth, this could all happen automatically and without any user involvement as soon as the phone comes within range of the PC! Of course, you can easily see this expanding to include your calendar, to do list, memos, email, etc. This is just one of many exciting applications for this new technology! Can you imagine walking into a store and having all the sale items automatically available on your cell phone or PDA? It is a definite possibility with Bluetooth.
The Bluetooth specification is an open specification that is governed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG). The Bluetooth SIG is lead by its five founding companies and four new member companies who were added in late 1999. These nine companies form the Promoter Group of the Bluetooth SIG:
Features of Bluetooth and its Challenges :
- Features:
Bluetooth is an industrial specification for wireless personal area network (PANs). Bluetooth provides a way to connect and exchange information between devices such as mobile phones, PCs, printers, digital cameras, and video game consoles over a secure, globally unlicensed short –range radio frequency. Bluetooth is a radio standard and communications protocol primarily designed for low power consumption, with a short range (power class dependent: 1 meter, 10 meters, 100 m) based on low- cost transceiver microchips in each device. Bluetooth lets these devices communicate with each other when they are in range. The devices use a radio communications system, so they do not have to be in line of sight of each other, and can even be in other rooms, as long as the received transmission is powerful enough.
- Challenges :
Bluetooth has several positive features and one would be extremely hard pressed to find downside when given the current competition. The only real downsides are the data rate and security. Infrared can have data rates up to 4MBps, which provides very fast rates for data transfer, while Bluetooth only offers 1 MBps.For this very reason, infrared has yet to be dispensed with completely and is considered by many to be the complimentary technology to that of Bluetooth. Infrared has inherent security due to its line of sight. The greater range and radio frequency (RF0 of Bluetooth makes it much more open to interception and attack. For this reason, security is a very key aspect to the Bluetooth specification.
Bluetooth Components :
Any Bluetooth solution consists of four major components_
Ø Antenna/RF
Ø Bluetooth Radio and Baseband
Ø Bluetooth Software Protocol Stack
Ø The Application itself
Each of these products in itself, and companies exist that have entire business models based around solving only one of these four areas.
v Antenna/RF:
The antenna and RF design portion is interesting in that it requires a unique solution for each device. When purchasing a Bluetooth module for Ericsson, for instance, the antenna is not provided. Bluetooth silicon manufacturers cannot effectively provide an antenna with the hardware. Even single chip solutions require specialized antenna design, depending on the device. Antenna design requires specialized skills to ensure that the Bluetooth radio will operate within its specification.
v Bluetooth Radio and Baseband
The Bluetooth radio is the hardware transceiver unit that implements the Bluetooth
Radio specification. The purpose of the specification is to provide compatitibility
between Bluetooth devices that operate in the 2.4GHz ISM band, and to define the
quality of the system.
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