Bluetooth Interference between piconets

bluetoothinterferencesensorsensor-nodewireless

I am developing a device that consists of a base station and several wireless sensor nodes. In application there may be up to 30 of these devices in a laboratory with up to 5 sensor nodes communicating with each base station. The sensors will be sampling and sending data at up to 4kHz at 12bits.

Without developing my own wireless protocol at 915MHz (to get away from busy 2.4GHz) it seems that bluetooth offers the best interference handling (using frequency hopping) of the many 2.4ghz wireless protocols available.

Has anyone had any experience with ~100 bluetooth devices or ~30 piconets operating in the same room?

I have thought about using 6LoWPAN at 915MHz but cannot find any information related to how it would handle the interference my application could cause.

Thanks!

Best Answer

I work in a testing facility that particularly tests phones and infotainment systems; there can be up to 20 different piconets running at the same time.

As you said, Bluetooth is incredible at avoiding interference through the frequency hopping spectrum and data whitening, an additional encryption that Bluetooth uses. From what I recall, the data whitening can only be decrypted with the Bluetooth address of the Master device. I do know that the timing of the hopping is determined by this address.

In summary, it will be unlikely that you encounter interference. If you do, perhaps consider building a large Faraday cage :)