Thorough Investigation of Multi-Path Techniques in RPL Based Wireless Networks

EasyChair Preprint 3888

Abstract

With the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) appliances in industrial environments, known as Industry 4.0, more and more wireless multi-hop network solutions are employed. The IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) is the de facto Low-power and Lossy Network (LLN) protocol specially designed for industrial use-cases. However, the default operation of RPL does not have enough features to ensure a high level of network reliability and minimum latency-jitter performance. The use of IEEE Std 802.15.4-2015 Time Slot Channel Hopping (TSCH) at the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer can mitigate the effects of external interference by re-transmitting over different radio frequency. Still, this standard does not support possible link failures or nodes over-the-air programming. In this paper, we propose the use of multiple disjoint paths to ensure reliable and available networking when RPL and TSCH standards are employed. Indeed, we present two disjoint approaches: i) packet replication at the source node, and ii) packet replication at the source node and scattering at the merging point node. We implemented these two algorithms over Contiki OS and evaluated their trade-offs over the simulated network environment provided by COOJA. Finally, we compared these solutions against the state-of-the-art Packet Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ), Replication and Elimination (RE), and Overhearing (PAREO) technique that proposes a braided multi-path pattern.

Keyphrases: IEEE 802.15.4, Industrial IoT, Internet of Things, IoT, LLNCs, PAREO, RAW, RPL, TSCH, multi-path routing

@booklet{EasyChair:3888,
  author    = {Ana Czarnitzki Estrin and Tomas Lagos Jenschke and Georgios Z. Papadopoulos and J. Ignacio Alvarez Hamelin and Nicolas Montavont},
  title     = {Thorough Investigation of Multi-Path Techniques in RPL Based Wireless Networks},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 3888},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2020}}