Matlab Simulate Bluetooth Network

BLE ACL Connection Simulation

Simulate Bluetooth LE ACL (Asynchronous Connection-Less) data links between central and peripheral nodes using system-level simulation.

When to Use

• BLE central-peripheral ACL data connections (1 central, N peripherals)

• Configuring connection intervals, active periods, offsets, PHYMode

• Comparing PHY modes or connection parameter settings

• Pre-configured instant connections (no advertising/scanning phase)

Need realistic connection establishment via advertising/scanning? Use references/ble-gap-connection.md instead.

Multi-Peripheral Star Network

BLE configureConnection does NOT accept a vector of peripherals — call per-peripheral in a loop.

sim = wirelessNetworkSimulator.init;

central = bluetoothLENode("central", Position=[0 0 0], Name="Central");
peripherals = bluetoothLENode("peripheral", ...
    Position=[5 0 0; 0 5 0; -5 0 0; 0 -5 0], ...
    Name=["P1", "P2", "P3", "P4"]);

numPeripherals = numel(peripherals);
connectionInterval = 0.02;
activePeriod = floor(connectionInterval / numPeripherals / 0.00125) * 0.00125;

cfg = bluetoothLEConnectionConfig;
cfg.ConnectionInterval = connectionInterval;
cfg.ActivePeriod = activePeriod;

for i = 1:numPeripherals
    cfg.ConnectionOffset = (i - 1) * activePeriod;
    cfg.AccessAddress = sprintf("5DA4427%d", i - 1);
    configureConnection(cfg, central, peripherals(i));
end

traffic = networkTrafficOnOff(DataRate=100, PacketSize=27, OnTime=Inf);
addTrafficSource(central, traffic, DestinationNode=peripherals);

addNodes(sim, [central; peripherals(:)]);
run(sim, 0.5);

Key rules for multi-peripheral:

• Each connection needs a unique AccessAddress

• ConnectionOffset values must be staggered so active periods don't overlap

• ActivePeriod × NumPeripherals ≤ ConnectionInterval

• ActivePeriod must be a multiple of 1.25ms — non-aligned values (e.g., 0.02/3 = 0.006667) cause infinite scheduling loops. Use floor(CI/N / 0.00125) * 0.00125 to round down.

• Config is a value class — safe to reuse and modify per iteration

Traffic Direction

addTrafficSource(central, traffic, DestinationNode=peripherals) — call on the sending node. Supports vector of destinations.

Connection Config Properties

PHYMode Behavior

The simulator models throughput differences between PHY modes but does NOT model coding gain as range extension (ReceiverSensitivity is node-level, not per-PHY). To model coded PHY range, run separate simulations with adjusted ReceiverSensitivity:

central125K = bluetoothLENode("central", Position=[0 0 0], ReceiverSensitivity=-112);
periph125K = bluetoothLENode("peripheral", Position=[400 0 0], ReceiverSensitivity=-112);

ActivePeriod bounds: MinAP ≤ ActivePeriod ≤ ConnectionInterval. The minimum must accommodate one MaxPDU C→P transmission + T_IFS (150µs) + one P→C response + T_MCES within a connection event. It scales with both PHYMode and MaxPDU — slower PHY or larger PDU requires more air time. If violated, configureConnection throws an error with the exact threshold.

KPI Extraction

Always use kpi() for throughput — NOT statistics().LL.Throughput:

tput = kpi(central, peripheral, "throughput", Layer="LL");  % CORRECT
% Do NOT use statistics(node).LL.Throughput — kpi() is the standard reporting API

Use kpi(src, dst, metric, Layer=layer). For BLE ACL: throughput at "LL", latency at "App", PLR/PDR at both.

For App-layer throughput (not available via kpi): stats.App.ReceivedBytes * 8 / (simDuration * 1000) Kbps.

Critical Constraints

• PacketSize ≤ MaxPDU (default 251, min 27) — runtime error if exceeded

• ActivePeriod minimum depends on PHYMode and MaxPDU — see PHYMode Behavior section above

• Mid-sim channel update: updateChannelList(central, channels, DestinationNode=peripheral) — only inside scheduleAction callback. See references/bluetooth-coexistence.md.

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