Unraveling Bluetooth Low Energy Audio: Stretching the Limits of Interoperable Wireless Audio with Bluetooth Next-Generation Audio Standards

Himanshu Bhalla is a Software Architect in the Client Computing Group (CCG) inside Intel Corporation and is based out of Bengaluru, India. He is a Computer Science graduate of IIT-BHU (Indian Institute of Technology - (BHU), Varanasi) and has over 17 years of experience in Software architecture, design and development. He spent most of his career in the Bluetooth and wireless technology domain. During the start of his career he was involved with a startup (Impulsesoft) which was behind one of the world's first Bluetooth combined (HF and A2DP) audio headsets in the market. He later worked with Broadcom where he was the architect for Bluetooth Software on Samsung Tizen DTV and received a key achievement award for it. He also contributed to Wi-Fi Direct Services (WFDS) standard and represented Broadcom in the Wi-Fi Alliance. In Intel, he contributed to Wi-Fi Serial Bus (WSB) standard and was instrumental in developing MAUSB (Media Agnostic USB) Software technology. He was a key contributor to Bluetooth Low Energy Audio standard and was editor of multiple critical specifications (ASCP, BAP, etc.). He received the prestigious "Outstanding New Contributor of the year" award for this work from the Chairman of Board of Directors of Bluetooth SIG during the Working Group Summit in Kirkland in 2018 - this award is based on anonymous voting by the members of the Bluetooth SIG Working Groups. For this, he was featured on the Bluetooth SIG website and also on Bluetooth SIG LinkedIn account, and this was written about him - "The procedures which he defined are a corner stone for LE audio". He was also interviewed inside Intel and his interview was featured in the company's "Inside Blue" portal. He also represents Intel in Bluetooth Architecture Review Board (BARB) and has provided feedback to over 20 specifications spanning across various Bluetooth SIG Working Groups (e.g. Mesh, ATA, GA, etc.). He is also a prolific inventor and has 4 patents granted and 4 more filed with the USPTO. He considers this book as an attempt to give back to the technology and a means to show gratitude to everyone involved in development of this standard.

Oren Haggai is a system architect in the wireless connectivity solutions group at Intel Israel, focusing on Bluetooth technology. He has over 20 years of experience working on various wireless products and standards. Over the years, he contributed to the specification development from early Bluetooth Core 0.7, 0.9, 1.0B, 1.1, 2.1, 4.1 and 5.2, until the latest state of the Bluetooth specifications. He began working on Bluetooth in 1999, while studying at the Technion university, Israel Institute of Technology, where he received a BSc in Computer and Software Engineering from the EE faculty. While at the university he integrated a Bluetooth stack for handheld PCs and phone form factors and instructed students in various Bluetooth projects. He designed and implemented a wireless local information system based on Bluetooth for the EE faculty at the Technion. He later joined a startup (Mobilian) in 2001 which integrated the world's first single chip Wi-Fi/Bluetooth coexistence solution which was the basis of the PTA 3-wire standard. While at Mobilian he designed the world's first wireless desktop system, enabling the concurrent operation of Bluetooth mouse, keyboard, A2DP music, file transfer, while co-running and co-exist with Wi-Fi networks. He joined Intel in 2003, as part of Mobilian's acquisition by Intel. At Intel he designed and developed Bluetooth solutions for phones and PCs, and a quality of service based dynamic connection manager for cellular WiMAX networks. He wrote system requirements for Bluetooth Low energy for Intel products and became a Bluetooth training champion at Intel, providing training to multiple discipline teams from RF, analog, HW, VLSI, firmware software and validation. He designed numerous MAC and PHY modules in Wi-Fi and in Bluetooth, which are driving a few generations of Intel Wi-Fi/Bluetooth wireless solutions in today's Intel based PCs. He is a member in the following Bluetooth SIG working groups: Audio Telephony and Automotive Working Group (ATAWG), Hearing Aids Working Group (HAWG), Generic Audio Working Group (GAWG) and Core Spec Working Group (CSWG). He contributed to every aspect of the LE Audio specifications in Controller, Host and Codec. He initiated the 0.7 version of the LE Audio stream control specifications, while defining the basic stream control quality of service procedures and coined a few popular LE Audio terms such as PAC (Published Audio Capability) and BASE (Broadcast Audio Source Endpoint). He holds several patents in the area of wireless communications. He sees the latest development in the Bluetooth specifications as an exciting era and a renaissance of the Bluetooth technology, and wishes to spread that knowledge to a wider audience.