Lessons Learnt From the Implementation of the IEEE 802.15.4e-TSCH MAC

In this work, we implement the IEEE 802.15.4e-Time Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol software stack on standard hardware. An Application Programming Interfaces (API) support and ready to deploy star network is built and tested. The interfacing between micro-controller and radio uses the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) bus. Our implementation reveals that over 50% of the time overhead is SPI communication. To maintain synchronisation over the entire network, we implemented algorithms to successfully communicate between fast and slow nodes. Resilience to interference and packet error ratio is evaluated. We consolidate our implementation in terms of 6 lessons that were learnt in building the MAC protocol.