Wireless Sensor Networks have become a key enabler for Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) applications; however, to adapt to the derived robust communication requirements, deterministic and scheduled medium access should be used, along with other features, such as channel hopping and frequency diversity. Implementing these mechanisms requires a correct synchronization of all devices in the network, a stage in deployment that can lead to non-operational networks. The present article presents an analysis of such situations and possible solutions, including the common current approaches and recommendations, and proposes a new beacon advertising method based on a specific Trickle Timer for the Medium Access Control (MAC) Time-Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) layer, decoupling from the timers in the network and routing layers. With this solution, improvements in connection success, time to join, and energy consumption can be obtained for the widely extended IEEE802.15.4e standard.

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is having an ever greater impact on industrial processes and the manufacturing sector, due the capabilities of massive data collection and interoperability with plant processes, key elements that are focused on the implementation of Industry 4.0. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are one of the enabling technologies of the IIoT, due its self-configuration and self-repair capabilities to deploy ad-hoc networks. High levels of robustness and reliability, which are necessary in industrial environments, can be achieved by using the Time-Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) medium access the mechanism of the IEEE 802.15.4e protocol, penalizing other features, such as network connection and formation times, given that a new node does not know, a priori, the scheduling used by the network. This article proposes a new beacon advertising approach for a fast synchronization for networks under the TSCH-Medium Access Control (MAC) layer and Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL). This new method makes it possible to speed up the connection times of new nodes in an opportunistic way, while reducing the consumption and advertising traffic generated by the network.

Emerging Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) give support to a wide diversity of applications, but these networks are based on devices with limited resources, requiring communication protocols such as RPL (Routing Protocol for Low power lossy networks) which allow the routes to be fitted to certain requirements. In this paper, we design a custom energy efficient objective function and build a WSN composed of real devices, and deployed it in a real use case under two scenarios. We then analyze the impact on network behavior and validate the designed objective function, with network lifetime extension showing some promise.

The Internet of Things is becoming a key enabler for a wide range of novel applications. For example, Smart applications in rural environments can help optimizing agricultural resources. Given rural environment characteristics, the low power wide area network solution LoRaWAN is a perfect candidate, providing wide coverage of several kilometres, with low power consumption and robust communication. Nevertheless, rural scenarios introduce varying conditions that may affect during communication. This article characterizes applications and recommend configurations in rural settings and support using LoRaWAN networks, after validation with a network deployment on different areas that cover foreseen applications and environmental conditions.