Tuplespace-based collaboration for Bluetooth-enabled devices in smart environments

Abstract

Smart environments are often populated by resource-restricted devices that need to cooperate with each other in order to access remote sensors and benefit from other devices' resources. This paper presents and evaluates a software platform that facilitates dynamic cooperation between resource-restricted Bluetooth-enabled devices. In order to cooperate, nodes actively participate in a distributed tuplespace that serves as a shared data structure and a medium to access remote resources. The paper motivates the communication related design decisions that led to a concrete implementation on an embedded device platform, the BTnodes. We evaluate this implementation on singleas well as multi-hop topologies and show how efficient inter-device cooperation must consider Bluetooth's communication properties as well as the resource restrictions of participating devices.