TSCH-Sim: Scaling Up Simulations of TSCH and 6TiSCH Networks.

Atis Elsts

doi:10.3390/s20195663

Abstract

TSCH (Time-Slotted Channel Hopping) and 6TiSCH (IPv6 over the TSCH mode of IEEE 802.15.4e) low-power wireless networks are becoming prominent in the industrial Internet of Things (IoT) and other areas where high reliability is needed in conjunction with energy efficiency. Due to the complexity of IoT deployments, network simulations are typically used for pre-deployment design and validation. However, it is currently difficult and time-consuming to simulate large-scale IoT networks with thousands of nodes. This paper proposes TSCH-Sim: a new discrete event simulator for IEEE 802.15.4-2015 TSCH and 6TiSCH networks. The evaluation shows that simulation results obtained with TSCH-Sim show a good match with results from other simulators that are commonly used to investigate TSCH networks. At the same time, TSCH-Sim is faster than these alternatives at least by an order of magnitude, making it more practical to carry out simulations of large networks.

Highlights

The TSCH (Time-Slotted Channel Hopping) protocol [1] is suitable for wireless network applications where high reliability and predictability is desired in conjunction with low power consumption
The evaluation shows that simulation results obtained with TSCH-Sim show a good match with results from other simulators that are commonly used to investigate TSCH networks
TSCH-Sim is faster than these alternatives at least by an order of magnitude, making it more practical to carry out simulations of large networks

Summary

Introduction

The TSCH (Time-Slotted Channel Hopping) protocol [1] is suitable for wireless network applications where high reliability and predictability is desired in conjunction with low power consumption. The 6TiSCH (IPv6 over the TSCH mode of IEEE 802.15.4e) working group [6] has developed the 6TiSCH simulator [7]—a discrete event simulator that implements the TSCH and 6TiSCH protocols Another frequently used tool for TSCH network research and validation is the Cooja simulator [8], which allows use of the Contiki and Contiki-NG implementations of TSCH & 6TiSCH protocols in simulated environments. While highly useful, these simulators have limited scalability [7] for simulations of large networks and when many scenarios need to be investigated (Section 4).

TSCH and 6TiSCH

Schedule for node B

Cooja Simulator

OpenSim

Core Functionality

Summary statistics

Modeling Packet Transmissions and Collisions

Achieving High Performance

User Workflow

Link and Mobility Models

Explicitly Configured Links

Unit Disk Graph Model