| The dramatic increase of mobile and portable devices such as cellular phones, PDAs and pagers spurs the demands for wireless communication among these devices. A wireless personal area network is one kind of local area network that can interconnect all devices supporting wireless capabilities in a short-range area by using wireless technology such as Bluetooth. Potential needs exist for communication between one device in one wireless personal area network and another device in another wireless personal area network across an existing network, and this communication can be conducted along with a voice, video, or Instant Messaging session. This thesis presents a framework and provides practical implementation that enables collaboration of two wireless personal area networks across an existing IP network in a spontaneous and session-managed manner. The presented system architecture and methodology leverages the IETF SIP protocol in order to trigger a service discovery request between two end points in a session. The end points may support a wireless personal area network like Bluetooth, so that the end effect is the extension of the wireless personal area network across the Internet in a controlled and managed manner. The result is a mechanism that can support the exchange of Bluetooth service profiles between Bluetooth devices, a Bluetooth device and a PC, and/or a Bluetooth device and an IR device located at the end points of an IP network. |
