Interference Evaluation of Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11b Systems

The emergence of several radio technologies, such as Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11, operating in the 2.4 GHz unlicensed ISM frequency band, may lead to signal interference and result in significant performance degradation when devices are colocated in the same environment. The main goal of this paper is to evaluate the effect of mutual interference on the performance of Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11b systems. We develop a simulation framework for modeling interference based on detailed MAC and PHY models. First, we use a simple simulation scenario to highlight the effects of parameters, such as transmission power, offered load, and traffic type. We then turn to more complex scenarios involving multiple Bluetooth piconets and WLAN devices.