Time Synchronized Channel Hopping (TSCH) is a Medium-Access Control (MAC) technique in which nodes synchronize, and a schedule orchestrates all communication in the network. After successfully using TSCH is the SmartMesh IP commercial product line, we decided, together with Pascal Thubert (Cisco), to create the IETF 6TiSCH Working Group. The goal of 6TiSCH is to get the best of both world by combining TSCH (“industrial” performance) and the ease of use of IPv6 through the IETF upper stack (6LoWPAN, RPL, CoAP). Since the creation of 6TiSCH in October 2013, I co-chair the working group, drive its technical developments, coach authors and author technical documents myself.
6TiSCH also encompasses and important security aspect, where we look how to enable nodes to join a network efficiently, which includes mutual authentication between node and network. Our security solution if based on PSK, and relies on AES-128 CCM*.
421 people follow the 6TiSCH activities through its mailing-list, with a healthy mix of industrial and academic contributors. 6TiSCH has produced 2 RFCs, 6 working group document in the process of being published, and various individual submissions. The working group has met 14 times in person, over 100 times through Webex. I have co-organized 3 plugfests and 3 interop events (each attended by at least 14 entities).
6TiSCH is now supported by all major open-source implementations (OpenWSN, Contiki, RIOT, TinyOS), and several companies are building commercial product lines with it.
6TiSCH has been playing a real role of catalyst for the academic low-power wireless community, which has now mostly moved towards TSCH/6TiSCH.
Thomas Watteyne 