Section: Bilateral Contracts and Grants with Industry

Bilateral Contracts with Industry

Participants : Pascale Minet, Ines Khoufi, Zied Soua.

In the framework of the CNES Launchers Research and Technology program, Inria and CNEs co-funded a study dealing with wireless sensor networks in a spatial environment. More precisely, this study deals with the improvement and performance evaluation of a solution of wireless sensor networksbased on the IEEE 802.15.4e standard of TSCH (Time Slotted Channel Hopping), operating in a spatial environment.

In space launch vehicles, a NASA study shows that the mass per channel of 0.45 kg for a wiring approach can be reduced to 0.09 kg for a wireless approach.8 A question arises: which wireless technology is able to meet the requirements of space launch vehicles in terms of latency, throughput and robustness. The IEEE 802.15.4e amendment has been designed to meet such requirements. More specifically, the Time Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) mode of the IEEE 802.15.4e standard that has been designed for industrial automation, process control and equipment monitoring, appears very promising for space launch vehicles. More precisely, the study for CNES deals with:

• Building an IEEE 802.15.4e TSCH network: see [11] the Acta Astronautica 2018 publication.

• Scheduling transmissions in an IEEE 802.15.4e TSCH network.

• Adapting the schedule to traffic or topology changes.

This study ended in July 2018 with very satisfying results.