Strategies for adaptive frequency hopping in the unlicensed bands

Mechanisms based on frequency hopping have been widely used to enable short-range wireless networks to use resources from the unlicensed spectrum without frequency planning. Bluetooth piconet is a prime example of an FH-based network with unlicensed operation. As a price for open access, the piconet may experience adverse interference from other collocated FH piconets or other wireless devices that are transmitting in the same unlicensed band. A basic approach to mitigate this interference is that the piconet applies adaptive FH (AFH) and attempts to hop over a set (hopset) of less interfered channels. On the other hand, the regulation of unlicensed operation sets constraints on possible hopset adaptations. In this article we present two novel AFH strategies: adaptive frequency rolling (AFR) and dynamic AFH (DAFH). AFR avoids self-interference while preserving the dynamics of spectrum usage as required by the current regulation. DAFH is a distributed mechanism by which collocated piconets select nonconflicting hopsets while trying to keep the hopset size as large as possible. DAFH is not completely compliant with current regulations, but the rationale given for its design contains new rules of behavior for the unlicensed spectrum. Both approaches significantly outperform the conventional AFH strategy