A QoS Channel Allocation Scheme for Enhancing the Reliability in 6TiSCH Networks

The recent IEEE 802.15.4-2015 standard proposes a number of Medium Access Control (MAC) layer protocols for low-power and lossy networks. The Timeslotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) is one of the proposed MAC operation modes, which take the advantage of channel hopping to make the transmissions more reliable and deterministic. In TSCH, slotframe is sliced into a timeslots and random channel hopping is used to mitigate the effects of co-channel interference and multipath fading. In this paper, we focus on the issue of random channel hopping in the error-prone wireless channel condition. In this research, a QoS Channel Allocation Scheme (QCAS) is proposed to enhance the reliability of emergency packet transmission in 6TiSCH networks. Based on our simulation results, we have observed that the proposed QCAS can achieve higher reliability of transmission over selected channel to provide higher throughput and higher delivery ratio than the original TSCH.