Improving 6TiSCH Reliability and Latency with Simultaneous Multi-Band Operation

TL;DR

This paper enhances 6TiSCH network reliability and latency by adding a second radio interface for parallel sub-GHz operation, demonstrating significant performance improvements through simulation.

Contribution

It introduces a dual-radio approach for 6TiSCH devices to operate simultaneously in multiple bands, improving reliability and latency.

Findings

25% increase in Packet Delivery Ratio

30% reduction in latency

Effective in various network scenarios

Abstract

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) group "IPv6 over the TSCH mode of IEEE 802.15.4e" (6TiSCH) introduced a protocol, utilizing Time-Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) from IEEE802.15.4e due to its high reliability and time-deterministic characteristic, that achieves industrial performance requirements while offering the benefits of IP connectivity. This work proposes the addition of a second radio interface in 6TiSCH devices to operate a parallel network in sub-GHz, introducing transmit diversity while benefiting from decreased path-loss and reduced interference. Simulation results show an improvement of 25% in Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) and closely to 30% in latency in different 6TiSCH networks scenarios.