CONSIP: Consistency Protocol for Hopping Function Exchange and Black listing in TSCH

TL;DR

This paper introduces CONSIP, a protocol ensuring consistent channel information exchange in TSCH networks, improving reliability without increasing latency, though it may limit node density due to backup cell requirements.

Contribution

CONSIP provides a novel consistency mechanism for channel information in TSCH networks, preventing communication failures caused by mismatched black/white listing data.

Findings

Slight increase in energy consumption due to backup cell usage

No increase in communication latency

Backup cell reservation may limit dense network scalability

Abstract

The use of white and black listing techniques in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), and in particular those which are based on the Time Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) operating mode of IEEE 802.15.4, permits to improve reliability and latency by performing transmissions on the best channels. Techniques that operate on a per-link basis are deemed quite effective, but proper operation requires that the two end points involved in the communication agree on the channels to be used for transmission. On the contrary, communication in the network can be prevented, eventually leading, in the worst cases, to the disconnection of part of the nodes. This paper presents CONSIP, a technique aimed to ensure strict consistency in the information exchanged between the nodes and used to drive communication, by preventing a prior the aforementioned problem from occurring. Results show a slight increase in energy consumption, due to the use of a backup cell, whereas communication latency does not worsen. The effectiveness of CONSIP was assessed by means of an experimental campaign, and the only drawback we found is that the backup cell, which is required to be reserved per link, may limit the number of nodes in dense networks.