Time-scheduled network evaluation based on interference

Industrial IoT applications often require both dependability and flexibility from the underlying networks. Restructuring production lines brings topological changes that directly affect the interference levels per link. When a scheduled network, e.g. IEEE802.15.4-TSCH (Time Synchronized Channel Hopping), is used to ensure dependability in low-power networks, rescheduling of transmissions is needed to re-establish effective and reliable end-to-end communication. Typical approaches focus on either centralized or distributed schedulers with little attention drawn on how the chosen solution would perform compared to other solutions or in different topologies. In this work, we introduce the concept of online assessment of TSCH schedules and present an automated method for evaluating schedules taking into consideration the internal interference and conflicts. The network and its TSCH schedule are mapped to a common representation, the interference graph, easy to analyze. Experiment results suggest that this evaluation method reflects the performance of the network when measured by packet reception ratio, end to end delivery ratio, and latency.