Evaluation of 6TiSCH network performance for SDN-enabled IoT networks

Abstract: Within the Internet of Things (IoT) a need for new IP-compatible communication technologies has grown stronger during the last few years as the need to connect these IoT networks to the Internet has become increasingly more important. In this report, we evaluate IPv6 over the TSCH mode of IEEE 802.15.4e (6TiSCH) with the purpose of observing how different values for the enhanced beacon (EB) period affect certain network metrics such as delay, energy consumption, join time, and throughput. The EB period is a periodic message used in the Time Slotted Channel hopping (TSCH) protocol used to advertise the network. Our goal is to evaluate the effect of different EB periods on the network and determine if there would be a benefit of integrating SDN to change the EB period dynamically. To fulfill our goal, we will evaluate the effect of the change in EB period on the network metrics. This would be an indication that the 6TiSCH network benefits from an integration with SDN. The reason that we would draw this conclusion is because SDN would be capable of predicting the state of the network and from that update the EB period for the 6TiSCH network. Our results indicate that a lower EB period has a positive effect on join times in the network while a longer EB period has a positive effect on the end-to-end delay. Our results display a promising future for future research on the integration of SDN and 6TiSCH.