DataJoin: An Energy-Efficient Joining Scheme for 802.15.4e TSCH Networks

This paper considers the problem of a node joining an existing 802.15.4e TSCH network. We propose DataJoin, an energy-efficient scheme based on two ideas: i) it schedules the transmission of enhanced beacon frames in a smart way by taking advantage of the information on the common TSCH schedule and ii) it piggybacks the next beacon transmission times onto some acknowledgment frames to allow a joining node to overhear this information. We compare DataJoin with the Baseline scheme that corresponds to the state-of-the-art protocol for joining TSCH networks. Simulation comparisons show lower energy consumption by the joining node under DataJoin along with similar joining delays and average network energy consumption for both schemes.