Methods for Selecting Efficient Routing Paths in IPv6 Wireless Mesh Networks

Abstract

A multitude of embedded devices can autonomously create a wireless mesh network newline(WMN) using IPv6 technology and communicate over Internet. Such networks are deployed newlinein IoT applications like, smart homes, smart buildings, industrial automation, smart newlinegrids etc. Interconnecting large number of embedded devices necessitate low power optimizations newlinein the network layer. Hence, RPL was designed by Internet Engineering Task newlineForce (IETF) as a network layer routing protocol to offer end to end communication for newlinelarge number of low power IoT devices. It is a part of Wi-SUN alliance that deploys large newlinescale outdoor field area networks for smart metering services across the world. Further, the newlinerouting protocol is available in many protocol stacks provided by IoT vendors such as, Radiocraft newline(RIIM), Texas Instruments (TI-RTOS), LumenRadio (MiraOS), ARM (Mbed) etc. newlineHowever, in literature, RPL is reported to experience multiple challenges such as unreliable newlinelink selection, load balancing issues, path instability, storage constraints and long source newlineroute header during scale up. The presence of such challenges combined with the protocol s newlinewidespread application, motivated us to study this protocol. newlineAn IPv6 WMN has a layered architecture with radio duty cycled links, IP header compression, newlineoptimized neighbour discovery, controlled information exchange and network layer newlinerouting. RPL, operating in the network layer, creates a tree like directed acyclic graph in newlinea proactive manner where, each node forms an optimal path to a central root node. This newlinegeneralized DAG structure is utilized for routing multi-point to point, point to multi-point newlineand point to point types of data traffic. Recent surveys on RPL, urge researchers to study newlineRPL in real time test beds having new generation SoC as mesh nodes. We evaluated RPL newlinein such capable devices and identified that the link failures along a long MP2P path cause newlinenetwork churn and increases control overhead. Further, P2P traffic in RPL suffers with long newlinepaths and uneven traffic distribution that