How to connect Android devices to bluerange mesh？

[BigBooks]

This is really a great project, especially the networking algorithm, I think it is very powerful. Thanks for the open source!

1. I would like to ask, I now want to connect Android devices to the mesh and participate in the networking algorithm, not just as a controller.
   What I mean is, is it possible for mobile phones to use this networking algorithm to communicate between mobile phones?

2. Is it difficult to transplant this algorithm on Android? Or do you have any suggestions for the development of mobile phone network communication algorithms?

I'd be very grateful for any useful help. Thanks！

[BigBooks]

Or is there an event flow chart? I roughly understand that this is the implementation of a set of event triggering mechanisms, but I am not very clear about the logic of event triggering because I do not have the hardware. But I very much hope to do something with this set of networking algorithms.

[mariusheil]

Hi,

it is possible to connect mobile phones to the mesh nodes and communicate with the netwok using the MeshAccessConnections. We haven't tried to port the algorithm to android itself. There are some hurdles in the way, such as the encryption (paring/bonding) and the simultanious usage of both the peripheral and central mode of BLE. Also, the BLE stacks on mobile platforms are not always stable as we've encountered in some projects. Sometimes they tend to lose connectivity that in the worst case require an OS restart, e.g. that happened for use when trying to handle a large number of connection requests. It is however not impossible as the BLE stacks have gotten better at handling the mentioned things.

On the difficulty, it's hard to say. With AI, you might be able to port a lot of the code. The only thing that needs actual porting would be the FruityHal, the other code is quite generic and should work on most platforms (if you use a native SDK that supports c/C++).

As for the flow chart, try to set up CherrySim. This allows you to test out the mesh without any actual hardware :-)
https://bluerange.io/docs/bluerange-mesh-community/CherrySim.html

There's quite a bit of documentaton to start and some flowcharts, e.g. here:
https://bluerange.io/docs/bluerange-mesh-community/The-Algorithm-in-Detail.html

Be aware that this documentation is quite old and some things might have changed. So using CherrySim would be a good way to start.

Marius

[BigBooks]

Thank you very much for your reply, I will learn CherrySim

[BigBooks]

Hi, I have a question, does the only logic for new nodes to access the network depend on CalculateClusterScoreAsMaster and CalculateClusterScoreAsSlave？
What I mean is, does the networking algorithm consider the optimal network topology to ensure that communication between nodes only requires the smallest possible number of hops?

[mariusheil]

Yes, the network topology structure is basically mostly controlled by these functions. The parameters and weights they use determine how the mesh is built. But the mesh forming is also done through the clusterSize counting, which allows the network to structure itself using only 1 peripheral connection and up to 3 central connections, thereby forming a tree. This is only a local optimization of the problem and there will be a better global optimum (different algorithms exist for this problem) but in order to find the global optimum, one would need to know all parameters of the network, e.g. who can reach who with which quality. Getting all data about surrounding nodes in viable time is already quite hard to to decentrally. And even having this data is quite a lot to transfer to a single master and could only be done after initially forming the mesh to get the data.

We have thought about doing a global optimization after initially forming the mesh, but the fact that the topology can also change over time through e.g. moving nodes, obstructions such as metal doors, etc,... does not make this easy. So while this might not be the optimal solution to the issue, it is a very good one under the real world conditions where we have tested it in. Being simple and decentral is the key strength here. There's not something like a master node that can fail that will affect the meshing.

Marius

[BigBooks]

Hi, I am trying to transplant recently, but I am not very clear about how to actually connect, network, and transmit data to bluerange. Can you provide me with a log including: networking, data transfer and other operations?
Thanks.