Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is the latest member in the group of wireless technologies developed especially for applications in short-range Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs). BLE was originally (starting in 2001) designed by a consortium led by Nokia under the name "Wibree".

From the beginning the goal was to create a low power network technology that could co-exist and be used in connection with mobile devices. It was also supposed to (complementary) co-exit with the existing Bluetooth standard using a dual-stack implementation.

In 2007 Wibree was incorporated into the Bluetooth SIG (Special Interest Group) and renamed into "Bluetooth Low Energy".

 

 

Links to Bluetooth Resources:

• Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG): https://www.bluetooth.org
• Official Bluetooth Technology Website: http://www.bluetooth.com

 

Bluetooth R&D areas at Kiel University of Applied Sciences:

The projects currently developed at Kiel University of Applied Sciences are especially related to the following state-of-the-art research areas:

• Internet of Things (IoT):
  Although this area has traditionally been taken by RFID applications, recently wireless sensor and activator networks (WSANs) including BLE are slowly taking over a large part of these technological fields.
• Monitoring and Automation:
  From the beginning wireless technologies have been used with sensors and actuators, in order to fulfil very diverse monitoring and control tasks. The introduction of modern MEMS devices has accelerated this process, so that today the development is outpacing Moore's law as it is known from the general semiconductor development.
• Mobile Health and Ambient Assisted Living (AAL):
  AAL can be considered a part of what is know as Ambient Intelligence and Ubiquitous Computing. Applying modern technology to assist human beings to better cope with the problems of daily life always has been an important goal. Wireless sensor networks have successfully been employed in health care, sports, and related subjects. Supporting elderly people in their daily life is now considered one of the main application areas of AAL.
  

 

Bluetooth projects under development:

The following list of projects just defines the major projects currently under preparation. Further project will continuously extend this list.
Initially these projects will use the devices and instrumentation already existing at Kiel University of Applied Sciences (especially in the Center for Adaptronics, see below). The development of new devices will open the space for more advanced applications.
All projects will cover hardware and software development, so that the team members can easily work in their respective favourite areas. A strong emphasis will be placed on the use and development of Android-compatible devices

Detailed list of projects:

• Using existing BLE devices in monitoring applications
• Developing applications and Apps to control BLE devices in real-time
• Developing applications and Apps to program the internal parameters of BLE devices
• Design and build new BLE devices using more advanced microcontrollers (e.g. MSP430, ARM, etc.)
• Develop and implement BLE devices and algorithms for highly specialized applications (e.g. fall detectors)
• Apply BLE devices in location detection (employing the ranging and micro-location capabilities of so-called iBeacons)
• Problems with RSSI-based location sensing (limitations).