Multicast Scheduling in SDN WISE to Support Mobile Nodes in Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

[EN] The growing use of mobile nodes in manufacturing environments is increasing the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of the communications infrastructures that support them, as is the case with Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSN). Managing networks using Software Defined Networks (SDN) addresses the challenge of handling multiple sources in a satisfactory manner. The global vision of the topology that the SDN controller has allows a logical segmentation of the network, through the allocation of dedicated resources for each information flow, thus ensuring independent service levels and complete isolation. Mobile nodes produce constant changes in topology, which lead to instability for routing protocols. Traditional routing solutions with protocols such as Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) require additional time to make the parent node change. This paper proposes Mobile Multicast Forwarding with Software Defined Network (MMF-SDN), an approach using Software Defined Networking solution for WIreless SEnsor Network (SDN WISE) protocol that exploits the advantages of SDN and Time Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) synchronism. The mobile nodes are managed as multicast sources, through a cumulative allocation of resources from the controller. This allows reception states to be synchronized at the parent nodes to provide network stability, avoiding subsequent recalculations in the routing protocol. Parent node changes are transparent and immediate. This proposal improves on other SDN based solutions, reducing energy consumption in reception by up to 50%, 70% end-to-end delay and improving scalability with a 30% reduction in slotframe occupancy.