Experiences using a dual wireless technology infrastructure to support ad-hoc multiplayer games

Multiplayer games for mobile wireless devices are becoming increasingly popular. Many modern devices such as PDAs or mobile telephones are equipped with Bluetooth interfaces. Bluetooth facilitates the formation of ad-hoc networks thus enabling users to set up multiplayer games spontaneously. On the other hand, Bluetooth has strong restrictions in terms of transmission range and the number of users per piconet. We deploy additional infrastructure in order to overcome these shortcomings. This infrastructure uses a second wireless technology that sets up and maintains a consistent view of a distributed game by exchanging information about the status and location of players. We set up an experimental testbed consisting of single-board communication devices developed in our lab and Bluetooth-equipped PDAs.Our experiments show that the proposed infrastructure is able to extend the range of games beyond the coverage of a Bluetooth piconet. Furthermore, we are able to track players. Smooth handovers between piconets are also possible. However, due to the current limitations of Bluetooth, handovers are not fast enough to enable highly interactive gaming across different piconets. We present a game that uses this and discuss future application scenarios.

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