Internship Bluetooth Mesh communication

Background

At Demcon JOHAN Sports, GPS & heart rate trackers  are made for football & hockey teams to let players perform optimally and prevent injuries.  The system collects data, using trackers that communicate via Bluetooth during matches and training sessions. This data is used during training sessions and matches to monitor the fitness and load of the players. The data is sent by the trackers via a hub to a tablet of the coache. This data ranges from information about number of sprint meters and accelerations to time spent in different heart rate zones. More than 125 teams from 28 countries use this platform.

During matches and training sessions, the aim is to have continuous insight in player data from the trackers, so the connection of trackers to the hub should be available as much as possible.  However, there are a few factors that disrupt this connection. During the match, other radio traffic limits the distance of communication. Additionally, the body of a player and other players block or disrupt communication, if they are between the hub and the tracker. Blocked communication results in the coach seeing old player data and incorrect differences in values like running distance.

Assignment:

The assignment is to investigate if Bluetooth mesh communication can improve the availability of data for the coach during matches and training sessions with many radio disruptions. At the moment, Bluetooth is used in a star form, where all trackers communicate to the central hub, which in turn communicates to the coach’s tablet. The trackers send packages at 1 Hz with updates on speed, heart rate, distance run and other parameters, directly to the hub. Sometimes the entire field has to be bridged with all the disruptions that entails. The aim is to investigate and demonstrate whether mesh communication, in which the message is sent to the hub via intermediate trackers, provides a more stable communication channel in match situations compared to current direct communication. It is possible to use a combination of mesh and star communication and to test other forms of messages. Validation of solutions is can be performed during matches of FC Twente in the stadium.