TSMP: Time Synchronized Mesh Protocol

K.S.J. Pister and L. Doherty (USA)

Keywords

Wireless Sensor Networks, Time Synchronization, Mesh

Abstract

The Time Synchronized Mesh Protocol (TSMP) enables reliable, low power, secure communication in a managed wireless mesh network. TSMP is a medium access and networking protocol designed for the recently ratified Wireless HART standard in industrial automation. TSMP benefits from synchronization of nodes in a multi-hop network to within a few hundred microseconds, allowing scheduling of collision-free pair-wise and broadcast communication to meet the traffic needs of all nodes while cycling through all available channels. Latency and reliability guarantees can be traded off for energy use, though our focus has been on providing high reliability (>99.9%) networks at the lowest power possible. TSMP has been demonstrated in multi-hop networks exceeding 250 nodes per access point, thousands of nodes with multiple access points, radio duty cycles of 0.01%, and with devices at radically different temperatures and traffic levels. With the 802.15.4 physical layer and 10 ms time slots, TSMP can theoretically achieve a secure payload throughput of 76 kbps at a single egress point.

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