Optimization of Bluetooth Audio Stream based on the Estimation of Proximity

Abstract

The advent of Bluetooth wireless technology makes it possible to transmit real-time audio in mobile devices. Bluetooth is cost-efficient and power-efficient, but it is not suitable for traditional audio encoding and real-time streaming due to limited bandwidth, high degree of error rates, and the time-varying nature of the radio link. Therefore, audio streaming over Bluetooth poses problems such as guzzling of both power and bandwidth. In order to overcome the above mentioned problems, an algorithm is proposed in this work to optimize the audio stream from the source to the sink by estimating the proximity between them. The optimization is achieved by adjusting the bit rate of the audio stream thus conserving power. We considered carefully various Bluetooth signal parameters and the most suitable parameter for estimating the proximity has been determined experimentally. The experiments were carried out using Class II BS003 Bluesoleil dongle. This work will enable the Bluetooth users to perform a seamless and optimized streaming of MP3 stereo audio data.