Constrained Flooding Based on Time Series Prediction and Lightweight GBN in BLE Mesh

Bluetooth Low Energy Mesh (BLE Mesh) enables Bluetooth flexibility and coverage by introducing Low-Power Nodes (LPNs) and enhanced networking protocol. It is also a commonly used communication method in sensor networks. In BLE Mesh, LPNs are periodically woken to exchange messages in a stop-and-wait way, where the tradeoff between energy and efficiency is a hard problem. Related works have reduced the energy consumption of LPNs mainly in the direction of changing the bearer layer, improving time synchronization and broadcast channel utilization. These algorithms improve communication efficiency; however, they cause energy loss, especially for the LPNs. In this paper, we propose a constrained flooding algorithm based on time series prediction and lightweight GBN (Go-Back-N). On the one hand, the wake-up cycle of the LPNs is determined by the time series prediction of the surrounding load. On the other, LPNs exchange messages through lightweight GBN, which improves the window and ACK mechanisms. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the Time series Prediction and LlightWeight GBN (TP-LW) algorithm in energy consumption and throughput. Compared with the original algorithm of BLE Mesh, when fewer packets are transmitted, the throughput is increased by 214.71%, and the energy consumption is reduced by 65.14%.