Elsevier

Computer Networks

Volume 222, February 2023, 109560
Computer Networks

DynGATT: A dynamic GATT-based data synchronization protocol for BLE networks

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2023.109560Get rights and content
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Abstract

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a wireless communication technology for power-constrained Internet of Things (IoT) applications. BLE data can be transmitted via either the IPv6 or the Generic ATTribute (GATT) Profile protocol, with the former supporting dynamic IoT structures and the latter being application-friendly. In fact, GATT requires the data layout to be known in advance by peer devices, in order to properly interpret the received data. In this paper, we introduce DynGATT, a protocol that achieves the benefits of both IPv6 and GATT, by extending GATT in a seamless fashion to support dynamic IoT structures. The key idea of DynGATT is to use GATT descriptors, originally intended to specify data in static IoT scenarios, to also specify IoT systems whose structures may dynamically evolve. Peer devices reading these descriptors will know how to interpret the data of GATT characteristics provided by devices joining the IoT network. Because no additional data have to be transmitted, the connection time is then reduced with respect to classical BLE. DynGATT has been implemented and tested in an agricultural IoT application, with different types of sensor nodes. Our experimental evaluation shows that DynGATT is very power-efficient, despite its added flexibility. Its worst-case power consumption is only around 19.37 µA per data transmission and around 41.37 µA overall. This consumption can be further reduced by using the methods discussed in this paper. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first to support dynamic IoT structures in a GATT-based setting.

Keywords

Internet of Things (IoT)
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
Generic ATTribute (GATT)
Internet Gateway
Dynamic network
Smart agriculture

Data availability

No data was used for the research described in the article.

Cited by (0)

Christian Hirsch is an independent researcher focusing on IoT solutions, hardware prototyping and development, especially based on near-range Wi-Fi and BLE and low-power Narrowband-IoT and LTE-M cellular. He has been a University Assistant at the Institute of Computer Engineering at the Vienna University of Technology until February 2022.

Luca Davoli is a non-tenured Assistant Professor at the Internet of Things (IoT) Laboratory, Department of Engineering and Architecture, University of Parma, Italy. He obtained his Dr. Ing. degree in computer engineering and his Ph.D. in information technologies at the Department of Information Engineering of the same university, in 2013 and 2017, respectively. His research interests focus on IoT, Pervasive Computing, Big Stream and Software-Defined Networking.

Radu Grosu received the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany, in 1994. He is currently a Professor and the Head of the Cyber-Physical Group, Faculty of Informatics, Vienna University of Technology. Before receiving his appointment at the Vienna University of Technology, he was an Associate Professor with the Computer Science Department, State University of New York, Stony Brook, where he co-directed the Concurrent-Systems Laboratory and co-founded the Systems-Biology Laboratory. He was a Research Associate with the Computer Science Department, University of Pennsylvania. He is a Research Professor with the Computer Science Department, State University of New York. His research interests include modeling, analysis and control of cyber–physical, and biological systems. His application focus include green operating systems, mobile ad-hoc networks, automotive systems, the Mars rover, cardiac-cell networks, and genetic regulatory networks. He is a member of the International Federation of Information Processing WG 2.2. He was the recipient of the National Science Foundation Career Award, the State University of New York Research Foundation Promising Inventor Award, the ACM Service Award.

Gianluigi Ferrari received the Laurea (summa cum laude) and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Parma, Parma, Italy, in 1998 and 2002, respectively. Since 2002, he has been with the University of Parma, where he is currently an Associate Professor of telecommunications and also the coordinator of the Internet of Things (IoT) Laboratory, Department of Engineering and Architecture. His current research interests include signal processing, advanced communication and networking, and IoT and smart systems.

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He was with the Institute of Computer Engineering of the Vienna University of Technology when contributing to this work.