Simulating 6TiSCH networks

6TiSCH is a working group at the IETF, which is standardizing how to combine IEEE802.15.4 time-slotted channel hopping (TSCH) with IPv6. The result is a solution that offers both industrial performance and seamless integration into the Internet and is therefore seen as a key technology for the Industrial Internet of Things. This article presents the 6TiSCH simulator, created as part of the standardization activity, and which has been used extensively by the working group. The goal of the simulator is to benchmark 6TiSCH against realistic scenarios, something which is hard to do using formal models or real-world deployments. This article discusses the overall architecture of the simulator, details the different models it uses (ie, energy and propagation), compares it to other simulation/emulation platforms, and presents five published examples of how the 6TiSCH simulator has been used.