Impact of network monitoring in IEEE 802.15.4e-based wireless sensor networks

Abstract

In the course of increasing the production flexibility and dynamics, the replacement of wired industrial monitoring and control systems by wireless solutions is ongoing. To offer a similar degree of reliability as wired solutions, the IEEE 802.15.4e, targeting factory automation, defines the Time Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) mechanism. It appears promising to reach a timely, reliable and energy efficient communication. In particular, the TSCH link allocation mechanism, which cares for transmission scheduling in time and frequency, plays a crucial role. In this paper we model and analyze a network monitoring solution for TSCH-based wireless sensor networks, which supplies the link scheduling algorithm with the necessary information about network health status. For distributing the information, we investigate the piggybacking principle and define a new information container for monitoring purposes in the MAC frame. We show the results of our preliminary evaluation for a centralized and a distributed approach in cluster-tree networks in terms of control plane overhead.