Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Useful Resources for Brilliant Manufacturing, Operational & Industrial Intelligence Technology Enthusiasts!

Automation, Control & Plant Intelligence - Articles, Analysis, Reviews, Interviews & Views

OPC - OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) for Process Control :: The Industrial Interoperability Standard

Bluetooth Technology - What is it?
Knowledge Base

Automation Media's recommended most important key terminologies you need to know if you work in Automation, Controls, Brilliant Manufacturing, Operational & Industrial Intelligence or IoT etc. ; regardless of any vendor(s) you are dealing (Allen Bradley, GE Fanuc, Siemens, Modicon, Mitsubishi, Omron, Automation Direct etc).

Bluetooth is the term used to describe the protocol of a short range (10 meter) frequency-hopping radio link between devices. These days many products already use bluetooth to communicate for example :

  • Mobile phone with ear phone

  • Hi-fi with MP3 player

  • PC with Mobile Phone

  • Air-conditioner with Mobile Phone


  • Many microcontroller such as PIC and Rabbit already integrate Bluetooth with their product to enable fast design and development.

    Bluetooth radio modules operate in the unlicensed ISM band at 2.4GHz, and avoid interference from other signals by hopping to a new frequency after transmitting or receiving a packet.

    Bluetooth is the name given to a new technology using short-range radio links, intended to replace the cable(s) connecting portable and/or fixed electronic devices. As a result there is no more hassle to use cable that need to be link at a short distance.

    Its key features are robustness, low complexity, low power and low cost. Designed to operate in noisy frequency environments, the Bluetooth radio uses a fast acknowledgement and frequency hopping scheme to make the link robust.


    Compared with other systems in the same frequency band, the Bluetooth radio hops faster and uses shorter packets.

    There are 7 layers in Bluetooth protocol stack:

    1. Radio Layer

    The Radio layer defines the requirements for a Bluetooth transceiver operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band.

    2. Baseband Layer

    This layer describes the specification of the Bluetooth Link Controller (LC) which carries out the baseband protocols and other low-level link routines.

    3. LMP Layer

    The Link Manager is used by the Link Managers (on either side) for link set-up and control.

    4. HCI Layer

    The Host Controller Interface provides a command interface to the Baseband Link Controller and Link Manager, and access to hardware status and control registers.

    5 L2CAP

    Logical Link Control and Adaptation Protocol supports higher level protocol multiplexing, packet segmentation and reassembly, and the conveying of quality of service information.

    6.RFCOMM

    The RFCOM protocol provides emulation of serial ports over the L2CAP protocol.

    7. SDP

    The SDP provides a means for applications to discover which services are provided by or available through a Bluetooth device. It also allows applications to determine the characteristics of those available services.



    Free OPC Clients   /   Free OPC Servers   /   Free OPC Utilities


    OPC Foundation owns all OPC trademarks including the OPC logo used throughout this site. Most of information in OPC Knowledge Base is from OPC foundation.
    Free Automation Stuff This information made available on Automation Media, are provided "as is" without any representation or warranty, express or implied, of any kind, including, but not limited to, warranties of merchantability, noninfringement, or fitness for any particular purpose. Automation Meida makes no warranty or representation regarding, and does not endorse, any linked Web sites or the information appearing thereon or any of the products or services described thereon.