Performance Evaluation of Multi-hop Network Configuration for Wi-SUN FAN Systems

Wireless Smart Utility Network Field Area Network (Wi-SUN FAN) is one of the Wi-SUN profiles that is expected to be adopted by many smart devices in advanced smart city infrastructures to provide Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication in Low power and Lossy Networks (LLNs). The physical and data link layer of Wi-SUN FAN systems is complied with IEEE 802.15.4-2015 to perform multi-hop data transmission. Currently, the implementation of Wi-SUN FAN devices has been initiated. However, the Wi-SUN FAN devices face a serious problem of very slow network configuration. In this paper, the multi-hop network configuration time of the current Wi-SUN FAN devices is measured by the experiment to analyze the factors that cause the slow configuration. The optimization scheme to accelerate the configuration process is discussed and the instant response configuration scheme that further reduces the configuration time is proposed. In addition, the computer simulation is performed to study the trade-off relationship between the configuration time and the percentage of time used in the configuration process. Finally, the appropriate values of the configuration parameters that can complete the configuration process in each hop within 1 minute while minimally deteriorate the transmission performance in both conventional and proposed configuration schemes are determined.