CSRmesh Beacon management and Asset Tracking Muhammad Ulislam Field Applications Engineer, Staff, Qualcomm Atheros, Inc.

CSRmesh Beacon management and Asset Tracking Muhammad Ulislam Field Applications Engineer, Staff, Qualcomm Atheros, Inc.

CSRmesh Recap

Bluetooth Mesh Introduction What is CSRmesh? A protocol that runs over existing Bluetooth Smart devices Adds mesh networking capability to Bluetooth Smart Extending range beyond nominal 50m Simple and easy to install & use No routers or Access Points to buy, install and configure Simple installation and configuration procedure via Smartphone A technology that truly enables low cost consumer plug & play Highly secure and robust Uses encryption & authentication, sends data on 3 channels Co-exists well with Wi-Fi Designed so you can directly control, configure and interact with many Bluetooth Smart things from your Mobile device

Flood Mesh Compared to a Routed Mesh Flood mesh network does not have any established routes data is propagated across the network with no specific path No single point of failure message can be relayed by other nodes: resilient against communication breakdowns Low latency no routing table, so no setup time to consider Much simpler ecosystem that can scale to thousands of smart nodes All devices are identical No concept of router, coordinator or end device Each node simply receives a message, acts on that message and then repeats it

CSRmesh Features Messages are relayed to extend Bluetooth range Allows any device with Bluetooth 4.0+ radio to be a part of the network Communicates directly with the phone unlike most of the other home automation protocols No single point of failure due to flood-based routing Messages are sent on 3 separate BLE advertising channels (37, 38 & 39) Channels co-exist very well with Wi-Fi Wi-Fi channels 1, 6 and 11 are typical defaults

Security CSRmesh protocol is designed to protect against: Eavesdropping All messages 128 AES encrypted Man-in-the-middle attack Authentication used Replay attacks Message sequencing used Inactivity snooping Watchdog messages sent Wi-Fi router wipe-outs Network is password protected (never openly visible) Network Key is encrypted Designed to allow addition & removal of devices using DHM public/private key cryptography

Models Define state and behaviour of device Models are self-contained; however each mesh device can combine multiple models to expose its behaviour LED lamp can contain Power Model to control power on and off and Light Model to control brightness or RGB colour of the light Models messages are identified by a message opcode Sensor Asset Beacon Power Light Appliance

Beacons with Mesh Beacon Management

Bluetooth Beacons Delivering Context Bluetooth Beacon technology enables a standard way for mobile devices to perform actions when in close proximity to a Beacon Example applications Tourist Guide Indoor Navigation Aid Location based advertisement Museum Guide Navigation support for visually impaired Analysis of dwell times, movement patterns etc. You are here

Beacon Standards ibeacon, Eddystone and Custom ibeacon Beacon standard developed by Apple Every ibeacon ID is 20 bytes long Eddystone Beacon standard developed by Google Eddystone UID is similar in purpose to ibeacon s UUID Eddystone URL contains a single field for a URL Eddystone TLM is telemetry data such as battery, uptime etc. Eddystone EID a time varying beacon frame resolved by the cloud Custom Beacon is transmitted as Manufacture Specific AD

The True Cost of Beacons The issues beacon manufacturers face: Managing the Beacon Configure beacon payload Configure beaconing parameters (e.g. beaconing interval) Large deployments of beacons Report status of the individual beacons Battery level Is the beacon still there etc. Currently solved by one of two ways: Physical proximity required to check and establish GATT connection to each beacon, requiring use of handheld device Have a Wi-Fi / Bluetooth Bridge infrastructure spread out within Bluetooth range of every beacon

Beaconing with CSRmesh Operation CSRmesh API allows injection of user advertisement into the mesh transmit queue User advertisement is scheduled to be transmitted once at closest transmit time slot Application receives confirmation message when advertisement is transmitted Only single user advertisement can be scheduled with mesh stack at the same time For multiple user advertisements, application needs to schedule them one after another user advertisement mesh TX Advertising interval mesh RX

Beacon Mesh Nodes Mesh Nodes Also Act as Beacons Nodes are beaconing in-between mesh operation Google Eddystone, ibeacon or proprietary Smartphone is scanning for Bluetooth low energy advertisements Can receive and decode beacons Receive and process mesh messages The mesh network is maintained while continuing to beacon Based on RSSI the smartphone app is able to determine which set of lights it is nearest to and judge it s location within the building You are here

Beacon Mesh Nodes Mesh Beacon Management Management of the beacons Set Type Set Payload Advertising frequency Health status Management is via the mesh Mesh Managed Beacon Model available in CSRmesh 2.1

Mesh Managed Beacons The beacons communicate periodically using Bluetooth Mesh Uses existing low cost Bluetooth Beacon infrastructure No need for a technician to go around servicing each beacon individually No need for access points to be scatter around the building Whole building coverage, one beacon just needs to be in range of the next Updatable in the field

Beacon Mesh Nodes Battery Powered Beacon Management The majority of time the beacons just Advertise Periodically (e.g. once a day) the beacons form a mesh network: Report status Opportunity to update payload Switch back to just Beaconing All updates are handled by the powered proxy beacon Updates are sent from Smartphone and stored in the proxy until the next mesh cycle

Beacon Mesh Nodes Mesh Beacon Management via Gateway Beacon management is also possible remotely via a Bluetooth mesh gateway Customers are able to develop their own application running in the gateway utilizing the Southbound API provided by Qualcomm Technologies, International, Ltd. The proxy beacon functionality can also be incorporated into the gateway

Asset Tracking CSRmesh

Asset Tracking with CSRmesh Backend CSRmesh v2.1 has the capability to track and trace assets using a dedicated asset & tracker model Assets, that broadcast their presence Trackers, that monitor locations of the assets and report them Mesh Implements two types of asset tracking Push asset model - continuous asset monitoring Tracking nodes report asset location as they discover it Pull asset model - on-demand asset location report Tracking nodes report last known location of the asset in response to the request Mesh Algorithm designed to minimise mesh traffic

Beacon Tracking Track ibeacons/eddystone Beacons Backend Each light is able to listen for beacons Mesh A beacon is placed on the asset that is needed to be tracked As the light detects the beacon it reports its UUID back over the CSRmesh network of lights Beacons At the backend data can be collected and analysed to build up a profile of each beacon, it s location, when it was moved and the route that it took

Beacon Tracking Example Scanning for Assets All devices are beaconing every 100ms Alternating between ibeacon & Eddystone-UID Tracker devices are scanning for trackable beacons based on their ibeacon UUID and Major ID

Beacon Tracking Scanning for Assets When a tracker device hears a trackable beacon, it starts a timer

Beacon Tracking Scanning for Assets When a tracker device hears a trackable beacon, it starts a timer The node continues to collect several beacons adverts and calculates an average RSSI When the timer expires (currently after 5 seconds) it pushes the message containing the average RSSI to the Tracker Model

Beacon Tracking Scanning for Assets Another timer is then started whose timeout is proportional to observed asset proximity The closer the asset, the shorter the timeout If the timer expires, a TRACKER_REPORT message is sent over the mesh Identifying the asset RSSI Zone The TRACKER_REPORTs are received and displayed by the mobile app

Beacon Tracking Scanning for Assets If however while the timer is running the tracker hears a TRACKER_REPORT from another node with a stronger RSSI The timer is stopped The asset is deleted from that trackers cache This prevents the mesh from being flooded

IoT Board Development Kit Builds on CSR1010 version DK-CSR1025-10280-1A Relay (Voltage free contacts) 3 x development boards included in the kit White & RGB LEDs PIR sensor Control relay External Flash (option) Printed F antenna Single crystal Activation code enables access to SDK Intended for use with CSRmesh 2.1 PIR Sensor Printed-F antenna White & RGB LEDs

SIG Mesh Update Robin Heydon Senior Director, Technology Qualcomm Technologies International, Ltd.

Thank you