EDSF: Efficient Distributed Scheduling Function for IETF 6TiSCH-based Industrial Wireless Networks

IETF 6TiSCH, which is composed of the IEEE802.15.4e and IPv6 RPL protocols, is a highly reliable and low-power industrial wireless network protocol stack. IEEE802.15.4e is the medium access control (MAC) layer protocol of the protocol stack—it defines a time-slotted channel hopping communication mode. IPv6 RPL is the network layer protocol of the protocol stack—it allows multiple nodes to form a multi-hop network. Scheduling is vital to the 6TiSCH protocol stack, as it defines the MAC layer cells to send/receive by the network packets. Herein, we propose an efficient distributed scheduling function (EDSF) for 6TiSCH wireless networks; it fully considers the use probability and distance of cells rather than random selection. Additionally, a schedule collision detection algorithm is proposed to detect two pairs of neighbor nodes that use the same cell. It fully utilizes the historical statistical data from the cell packet delivery ratio. Finally, we implement the EDSF scheme and verify its performance through experiments on a 6TiSCH simulator. The experimental results show that our proposed scheme can achieve a low end-to-end latency without additional costs.