Fall 2010 IAB
September 15 to 17
Reliable Communication in Wireless Sensor Networks with IEEE802.15.4e/TSCH
The next wireless revolution is quietly coming and with it an epochal turnpoint in network design. Wireless networking in the near future is no more limited to "just" the provision of a communication infrastructure. The appearance of "reliability" as an essential requirement will drastically augment with the foreseen emergence of Wireless sensor networks (WSNs).
Such networks face the challenge of ensuring end-to-end communication while operating over individually unreliable wireless links. While single channel solutions enable best-effort operation, critical applications require high reliability and real-time guarantees. The multi-hop nature of a WSN, narrow-band interference and persistent multi-path fading make achieving reliable communication an interesting challenge.
We will underline some of the constraints related to these tiny devices are well as the overall behavior of the wireless link which make reliability so challenging. After dwelling over the latest developments in standardization bodies such as the IEEE802.15.4e, we will examine recent research results; by simulating the behavior of communication protocols over real-world connectivity traces, we show how channel hopping presents the characteristics needed for achieving reliable wireless communication.