Multisensor IoT interface with Bluetooth Low Energy

Abstract

The article detailed the challenges in implementing a multisensor Android BLE application and a new methodology - SASC - was proposed to address these challenges. Benchmarking tests and free-living tests were conducted to validate the SASC implementation schemes. The benchmarking tests gave quantified results on metrics such as throughput, CPU loading on the smartphone and power consumption by the Android application for various number of sensors and varying connection intervals. The results of Android application throughput evaluation suggest that the maximum achievable throughput is ~20 kbps for a single sensor connection and ~70 kbps for a seven -sensor connection under SASC methodology. The results of the CPU loading and power consumption tests suggest that CPU loading and power consumption figures can be kept low by using a connection interval of 13.75 ms or greater. The proposed SASC methodology was also used in a real-life use case for gait data collection using SmartStep sensors, and a total of 19 days of human subject tests resulted in 100% data retrieval. These results suggest that the proposed methodology can serve as a foundation for applications that require managing multiple BLE connections in the world of IoT.