The emergence of Bluetooth as a default radio interface allows handheld electronic devices to be rapidly interconnected into ad hoc networks. Bluetooth allows large numbers of piconets to form a scatternet using designated nodes that participate in multiple piconets. We study the performance implications of forming scatternets from piconets. The contribution of our work is twofold. First, we establish a network model and define performance metrics for Bluetooth scatternets. Our model is derived from constraints specific to the Bluetooth technology, but is sufficiently abstract to relate to the more general field of ad hoc networking. Second, using a number of simulation studies, we relate scatternet parameters to performance metrics and discover correlations between scatternet formation rules and performance. These results reveal some important performance implications of scatternet design decisions and can serve as guidelines for future scatternet formation algorithms.
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