BE Mesh: A Bluetooth Low Energy Mesh Network

Andrea Lacava∗, Gianluigi Nero∗, Pierluigi Locatelli∗, Francesca Cuomo∗, Tommaso Melodia†

∗University of Rome “La Sapienza”, 00184, ITALY; †Northeastern University, MA 02115, USA

Abstract - We propose and discuss BE-Mesh-Bluetooth low Energy-Meshed network, a new paradigm for BLE (BluetoothLow Energy) that enables mesh networking among wirelessly interconnected devices, both in a single hop and multi-hop fashion. Starting from the classical Master/Slave paradigm of Bluetooth, we build two new layers based on BLE stack that allow the final user to set-up, in a fast way, the desired network topology while hiding the complexity and low-level details of the BLE stack. We also prototype, as a proof of concept, an open source Android library that implements our communication paradigm and an Android application that allows the exchange of text messages across the mesh network. Last, we demonstrate how BE-Mesh enables Internet access sharing with the whole mesh from a single Internet-connected device.

• Follow our Official BE Mesh Twitter account: @MeshBle.
• This work was presented at Infocom 2019.
• Lower tier of HIRO-NET.
• Read the demo paper.
• If you intend to use this work, please cite the related paper (BibTex):

@INPROCEEDINGS{Laca1904:Demo,
AUTHOR="Andrea Lacava and Gianluigi Nero and Pierluigi Locatelli and Francesca
Cuomo and Tommaso Melodia",
TITLE="Demo Abstract: {BE-Mesh:} Bluetooth Low Energy Mesh Networking",
BOOKTITLE="2019 IEEE INFOCOM Demo (INFOCOM 2019 Demo)",
ADDRESS="Paris, France",
DAYS=28,
MONTH=apr,
YEAR=2019,
KEYWORDS="Bluetooth Low Energy; Android library; Mesh network; Internet access
sharing",
ABSTRACT="We propose and discuss BE-Mesh-Bluetooth low Energy-Meshed network, a new
paradigm for BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) that enables mesh networking among
wirelessly interconnected devices, both in a single hop and multi-hop
fashion. Starting from the classical Master/Slave paradigm of Bluetooth, we
build two new layers based on BLE stack that allow the final user to
set-up, in a fast way, the desired network topology while hiding the
complexity and low-level details of the BLE stack. We also prototype, as a
proof of concept, an open source Android library [1] that implements our
communication paradigm and an Android application that allows the exchange
of text messages across the mesh network. Last, we demonstrate how BE-Mesh
enables Internet access sharing with the whole mesh from a single
Internet-connected device."
}

Create a Be Mesh!

1. Download and open the app
2. Press the start button
3. Chat with the others
4. Try to send an email or a tweet

Build the app from source

Please note that the current version of the repository does not reflect the version onthe google play store and compatibility between versions is not guaranteed.

Pre-requisites

• The phone candidate to be server must support multipleAdvertisement

• Android SDK >= 23

• Compatible with Android Things!

• Clone this repository

• You must create two files in app/src/main/resources with the following attributes:

  email.properties:

email.username=
email.password=

twitter4j.properties:

debug=true
oauth.consumerKey=
oauth.consumerSecret=
oauth.accessToken=
oauth.accessTokenSecret=

• Build the project and launch the app on your smartphone