Enhanced Beacons Dynamic Transmission over TSCH

Abstract

Time slotted channel hopping (TSCH) has become the standard multichannel MAC protocol for low-power lossy networks. The procedure for associating nodes in a TSCH-based network is not included in the standard and has been defined in the minimal 6TiSCH configuration. Faster network formation ensures that data packet transmission can start sooner. This paper proposes a dynamic beacon transmission schedule over the TSCH mechanism that achieves a shorter network formation time than the default minimum 6TiSCH static schedule. A theoretical model is derived for the proposed mechanism to estimate the expected time for a node to get associated with the network. Simulation results obtained with different network topologies and channel conditions show that the proposed mechanism reduces the average association time and average power consumption during network formation compared to the default minimal 6TiSCH configuration.