Directional Antenna Based Scheduling Protocol for IoT Networks
Anil Carie, Abdur Rashid Sangi, Satish Anamalamudi, Murali Krishna Enduri, Baha Ihnaini, Hemn Barzan Abdalla
TL;DR
The paper tackles MAC-layer scheduling challenges in IoT networks using 6TiSCH, where omni-directional scheduling limits throughput and spatial reuse. It proposes a distributed one-hop directional scheduling protocol, combining a hybrid synchronous TDMA/CSMA-CA MAC with directional transmissions for data and omni-directional control. Key contributions include an antenna model for directional beams, local schedule computation at each node, and RTS/CTS signaling that includes directional information to enable concurrent cross-directional transmissions. Simulation results in a 16-node testbed show improved throughput and reduced end-to-end delay compared with omni-directional baselines, underscoring the potential of directional scheduling for energy-constrained IoT deployments.
Abstract
Scheduling and Channel Access at the MAC layer of the IoT network plays a pivotal role in enhancing the performance of IoT networks. State-of-the-art Omni-directional antenna based application data transmission has relatively less achievable throughput in comparison with directional antenna based scheduling protocols. To enhance the performance of the IoT networks, this paper propose a distributed one-hop scheduling algorithm called Directional Scheduling protocol for constrained deterministic 6TiSCH-IoT network. With this, in-creased number of IoT nodes can have concurrent application data transmission with efficient spatial reuse. This in-turn results in higher number of cell allocation to the one-hop IoT nodes during data transmission. The proposed algorithm makes use of through directional transmissions avoids head of line blocking.