Orchestra: Robust Mesh Networks Through Autonomously Scheduled TSCH
Résumé
Time slotted operation is a well-proven approach to achieve
highly-reliable low-power networking through scheduling
and channel hopping. It is, however, difficult to apply time
slotting to dynamic networks as envisioned in the Internet
of Things. Commonly, these applications do not have predefined periodic traffic patterns and nodes can be added or
removed dynamically.
This paper addresses the challenge of bringing TSCH
(Time Slotted Channel Hopping MAC) to such dynamic
networks. We focus on low-power IPv6 and RPL networks,
and introduce Orchestra. In Orchestra, nodes autonomously
compute their own, local schedules. They maintain multiple
schedules, each allocated to a particular traffic plane (application,
routing, MAC), and updated automatically as the
topology evolves. Orchestra (re)computes local schedules
without signaling overhead, and does not require any central
or distributed scheduler. Instead, it relies on the existing
network stack information to maintain the schedules. This
scheme allows Orchestra to build non-deterministic networks
while exploiting the robustness of TSCH.
We demonstrate the practicality of Orchestra and quantify
its benefits through extensive evaluation in two testbeds, on
two hardware platforms. Orchestra reduces, or even eliminates,
network contention. In long running experiments
of up to 72 h we show that Orchestra achieves end-to-end
delivery ratios of over 99.99%. Compared to RPL in asynchronous
low-power listening networks, Orchestra improves
reliability by two orders of magnitude, while achieving a
similar latency-energy balance.