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IETF 6TiSCH standard aims to create reliable, deterministic, and low-power networks by scheduling bandwidth resources in time and frequency domains. The main emphasis of 6TiSCH protocol is that it creates Internet of things (IoT) networks with a deterministic and controllable delay. However, many of its benefits are tied to the ability of the 6TiSCH scheduler to optimally distribute radio resources among wireless nodes which may not be possible when the number of frequency resources are limited and several other wireless technologies share the same frequency band (e.g., WiFi, Bluetooth and IEEE 802.15.4). Here the integration of a low-complexity directional antenna system with IETF 6TiSCH protocol is investigated with the aim of creating a 6TiSCH solution with higher spatial reuse. 6TiSCH nodes equipped with such smart directional antennas can schedule bandwidth resources not only in time and frequency domain but also in spatial (space) domain.

Steerable directional antennas are increasingly utilised to improve the overall performance of the traditional wireless sensor networks. Steerable directional antenna based networking solutions increase the network capacity by providing a longer range of transmission and reduced interference as compared to networking solutions with omni-directional antennas. However, the use of smart antennas requires complex algorithms and such algorithms may not be easily leveraged in low power Internet of Things (IoT) networks. This study presents mechanisms for integrating low complexity smart antenna solutions into IETF 6TiSCH protocol with the aim of creating scalable and reliable industrial IoT networks. The solution defines extensions to MAC layer and scheduling mechanisms of IETF 6TiSCH protocol to enable its seamless integration with low complexity steerable smart antennas. The results of this study show that smart antenna enabled 6TiSCH protocol stack outperforms the legacy 6TiSCH stack in terms of data delivery performance especially in high density scenarios.<br>

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