The use of Bluetooth Low Energy in low-range Internet of Things systems is growing exponentially. Similar to other wireless communication protocols, throughput and reliability are two key performance metrics in Bluetooth Low Energy communications. However, electromagnetic interference from various sources can heavily affect the performance of wireless devices, leading to dropped throughput and unreliable communication. Therefore, there is a need for both theoretical and practical studies capable of quantifying the BLE communication performance, e.g. throughput and reliability, subject to interference. In this paper, a mathematical model to predict throughput of a BLE connection under interference is derived first, and linked to the reliability model we developed in [1]. After that, extensive practical experiments are performed in various scenarios to sufficiently validate the theoretical results from both models. Finally, the trade-off between throughput and reliability is investigated through the validated models to give some inside properties of BLE communications. The similarity between the theoretical results and the experimental ones highlights the accuracy of the proposed throughput and reliability models. Hence, the two models can be used to explore the performance of various BLE designs or deployments from diverse perspectives.

翻译：蓝牙低功耗在短距离物联网系统中的应用呈指数级增长。与其他无线通信协议类似，吞吐量和可靠性是蓝牙低功耗通信中的两个关键性能指标。然而，来自不同来源的电磁干扰会严重影响无线设备的性能，导致吞吐量下降和通信不可靠。因此，迫切需要能够量化干扰条件下BLE通信性能（如吞吐量和可靠性）的理论与实验研究。本文首先推导了一个用于预测干扰条件下BLE连接吞吐量的数学模型，并将其与我们在文献[1]中开发的可靠性模型相关联。随后，在不同场景下开展了大量实践实验，以充分验证这两个模型的理论结果。最后，通过验证后的模型探究了吞吐量与可靠性之间的权衡关系，揭示了BLE通信的若干内在特性。理论结果与实验结果的相似性凸显了所提吞吐量与可靠性模型的准确性。因此，这两个模型可用于从不同角度探索各类BLE设计或部署方案的性能表现。