Bluetooth is a wireless LAN technology designed to connect devices of different functions such as telephones, notebooks, computers (desktop and laptop), cameras, printers, coffee makers, and so on. A Bluetooth LAN is an ad hoc network, which means that the network is formed spontaneously; the devices, sometimes called gadgets, find each other and make a network called a piconet. A Bluetooth LAN can even be connected to the Internet if one of the gadgets has this capability. A Bluetooth LAN, by nature, cannot be large. Ifthere are many gadgets that try to connect, there is chaos. Bluetooth technology has several applications. Peripheral devices such as a wireless mouse or keyboard can communicate with the computer through this technology. Monitoring devices can communicate with sensor devices in a small health care center. Home security devices can use this technology to connect different sensors to the main
security controller. Conference attendees can synchronize their laptop computers at a conference. Bluetooth was originally started as a project by the Ericsson Company. It is named for Harald Blaatand, the king of Denmark (940-981) who united Denmark and Norway. Blaatand translates to Bluetooth in English. Today, Bluetooth technology is the implementation of a protocol defined by the IEEE 802.15 standard. The standard defines a wireless personal-area network (PAN) operable in an area the size of a room or a hall.
Piconets
A Bluetooth network is called a piconet, or a small net. A piconet can have up to eight stations, one of which is called the primary;t the rest are called secondaries. All the secondary stations synchronize their clocks and hopping sequence with the primary. Note that a piconet can have only one primary station. The communication between the primary and the secondary can be one-to-one or one-to-many. Figure 14.19 shows a piconet.
Although a piconet can have a maximum of seven secondaries, an additional eight secondaries can be in the parked state. A secondary in a parked state is synchronized with the primary, but cannot take part in communication until it is moved from the parked state. Because only eight stations can be active in a piconet, activating a station from the parked state means that an active station must go to the parked state.
