Personal Area Networks (Bluetooth/WiFi/UWB)

PERSONAL AREA NETWORKS

Topics

A two and a half day programme for engineers and market and research team leaders involved in Personal Area Network development programmes including Bluetooth based devices, DECT based devices and WiFi and UWB based systems.

Objective

* To review present and likely future PAN (personal area network) hardware and software functionality, how the changes taking place in the PHY and MAC will impact software architectures, communication stacks and higher layer protocol performance.
* To suggest ways in which performance and market value can be realised by integrating Bluetooth and present DECT based systems with present and future WiFi and UWB technologies.
* To study some of the practical design, cost and performance issues implicit in bringing Bluetooth, WiFi and cellular together in a small form factor power limited and noise limited device
* To put Bluetooth into context in terms of work presently under way on cellular/WLAN and PAN network integration (UMA), and device and interface standardisation (MIPI and SMIA)

Scope

This programme is directly relevant to design engineers, product managers and technology and market research team leaders working on present and future personal area network development projects.The programme draws on over 20 years of research and active involvement in radio access network design and will be of direct interest to engineers and product and market managers with responsibility for defining future personal area network design and performance policy and/or for managers and team leaders with responsibility for strategic personal area network technology planning. Typical delegate organisations include device vendors, handset manufacturers, third party OEM and ODM hardware and software development houses and test equipment vendors with an interest in future personal area network performance trends and related user expectations.

DAY 1

18.30 Registration and Welcome

19.00 - 21.00 Dinner

21.00 - 22.00
Personal Area Network Product Review

A review of present DECT based, Bluetooth based and WiFi based personal area network products, data rates and service/application profiles, product form factor and functionality, wide area, local area and personal area network integration, longer term impact of UWB on product functionality, device to device communication capabilities, power consumption comparisons and implications for future application differentiation.

DAY 2

08.00 - 09.00 Breakfast

09.00 - 10.30
The Bluetooth PHY

A review of 1.1, 1.2 (automatic frequency hopping), 1.2 EDR (enhanced data rate) and 2.0 (PHY flexibility), practical performance limitations of the PHY, typical performance optimisation techniques (including antenna optimisation), effect of AFH on performance when co-existing with WiFi 'wireless b' and 'wireless g' transmissions, effect of EDR on real data throughputs, RF performance benchmarks, sensitivity targets, range and data rate trade offs, 2.0 and the flexible PHY, commonalities with the UMTS Release 6 radio layer (simultaneous voice, data and device control), how the flexible PHY changes upper layer hardware and software functionality.

10.30 - 11.00 Coffee

11.00 - 12.30

Bluetooth source coding, channel coding and MAC evolution

Voice, audio, video encoding/decoding, typical processor overheads, power budgets, delay budgets, FEC and ARQ options, symmetric, asymmetric, synchronous, asynchonous and isochronous data transfer, contention based versus connection based MAC options, session profiling, impact of security on session set up, session maintenance, optimising MAC and higher layer protocol performance, impact of the MAC (retries/packet loss) on TCP/IP and UDP. IP QOS and the Bluetooth MAC, security and access control procedures.

12.30 - 13.30 Lunch

13.30 - 15.00
Device management and link management protocols

Piconets and scatternets ,ad hoc and mesh network association and management protocols, MAC address functionality, IP address functionality, device discovery(device profiles/application profiles), lessons learnt from MeXe class marks and terminal classification (MIDP), Bluetooth security architectures, comparison with WiFi security (WEP, WPA/AES), typical hardware/software partitioning when implementing end to end security, processor overheads and delay budgets, SIM/USIM based access options.

15.00 - 15.30 Tea

15.30 - 17.00
Bluetooth Mobility and UMA integration

IP QoS ,IP mobility and IP MMS, the impact of Release 6/7 on Bluetooth and related implications of UMA architecture and UMA protocol proposals, personal area, local area and wide area network integration, 'best connect broadband' market concepts, practical scalability issues, the network proposition, UNC/UMAN/GSM/UMTS/Bluetooth capabilities, device level compatibility issues, separate or integrated protocol stacks, separate or integrated baseband/application processors, WIPI and SMIA initiatives on processor and interface standardisation,

19.00 - 21.00 Dinner

21.00 - 22.00 Special Interest Session
Delegates are encouraged to specify topics of particular interest they would like addressed in this session.

DAY 3

08.00 - 09.00 Breakfast

09.00 - 10.30
DECT/WIFI/UWB/BLUETOOTH Integration

DECT voice and data profiles, DECT versus WiFi functionality including range and data rate comparisons, WiFi technology review, wireless a, b, g and n (MIMO) PHY capabilities, WiFi QoS (802.11 e), EDCA and HCCA wireless media extensions, WiFi MAC evolution and commonalities with Bluetooth, 802.15.2 coexistence and 802.15.3 high rate PAN proposals, related overlap with Bluetooth PAN functionality, VowLan/WiFi voice and overlap with Bluetooth voice profiles, WiFi HiFi and overlap with Bluetooth audio profiles, the g and a OFDM multiplex, practical power constraints of implementing a and g in small form factor devices, associated protocol and processor overheads, dual band multi mode device platforms, possible integration with DAB/DVB H , the UWB PHY options (DS - UWB and MBOA), where does UWB fit as an additional PHY and MAC.

10.30 - 11.00 Coffee

11.00 - 12.30
Bluetooth, WiFi and UWB software architectures

Commonalities between Bluetooth, WiFi and UWB protocol and communication stacks, device profiles, application profiles, security profiles, Bluetooth/WiFi/UWB GUI design (case study of typical WiFi GUI implementation) impact of multitasking and multiplexing on software architectures, typical software performance benchmarks (interrupt latencies) and the evolutionary role of software in power management and complex device control.

12.30 - 13.30 Lunch

13.30 - 15.00
Hardware Case Study

A third party view of future Bluetooth functionality and consumer and professional (enterprise) end user expectations in present phone applications, hardware/software form factor, relationship between cost (BOM) and average margin per customer (AMPC), 'new' Bluetooth target applications, multi-player gaming, optimised headsets, low data rate extended range, high data rate close range applications (device to device, machine to machine), low data rate/extended duty cycle(Zigbee based) platforms, integration with NFC (near field communication) technology.

15.00 - 15.30 Tea

15.30 - 17.00
Market case study

The market positioning of Intel 'Centrino' in nomadic access and 'Rosedale' in WiMobile (including 802.16 compatibility), Apple WiFi HiFi as a case study of new consumer applications, a vendor review of present Bluetooth , WiFi and UWB silicon, Microsoft and their positioning of XP and Pocket PC as access facilitators for WiFi and PAN connectivity. SIM/USIM based wide area to local area to personal area handover, Release 7 work items and their likely impact on future personal area network hardware and software form factor and functionality.

17.00 Summary and Close