Industrial IEEE802.15.4e networks: Performance and trade-offs

Time Synchronized Channel Hopping (TSCH) is a technique that enables ultra reliable and ultra low-power wireless multi-hop networks, and in which communication is orchestrated by a schedule. When building that schedule, one can cleanly trade off between latency, power consumption, throughput, and reliability. TSCH technology is commonplace in industrial applications, with increasing momentum to apply it to other application domains. This paper is the first to present a model that estimates the performance of a complete network. This model is applied to SmartMesh IP, a commercial TSCH product. The parameters of different classes of use cases for low-power mesh networks are presented, and the estimation model is used to evaluate the applicability of TSCH technology to those cases. This paper indicates how TSCH networks can be used in a wide range of applications: from urban applications which require a decade of battery lifetime, to high-density smart building networks with tens of nodes in the same radio space, and to deep multi-hop networks in an industrial setting.