A Novel Approach for Improving Energy Efficiency and Reliability in the Internet of Things Low Power and Lossy Networks

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of devices that are capable of newlineexchanging data via the Internet autonomously, without the need for human involvement. A newlinespecialised subset of IoT, known as Internet of Things Low Power and Lossy Networks newline(IoT LLN), caters to environments with limited resources and intermittent connectivity. newlineDevices in the IoT LLN networks have limited resources in terms of processing power, newlinememory, and energy. To prolong battery life, they operate efficiently with minimal energy newlineconsumption. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) designed IPv6 over the Time newlineSlotted Channel Hopping mode of the IEEE 802.15.4e (6TiSCH) protocol suite for the IoT newlineLLN. We refer to this network as the 6TiSCH network. For network formation and newlinemaintenance, the IoT LLN primarily uses the 6TiSCH Minimal Configuration (6TiSCH newlineMC) scheme and the Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL). newlineThe network bootstrapping and maintenance stages consume the majority of the newlinebattery energy of the IoT LLN devices. Even though the nodes are static, the IoT LLN newlinedevices very often encounter network disconnection because of frequent control message newlinecollisions and droppings. This is due to the fact that the 6TiSCH MC allows only one shared newlinecell per slotframe to communicate all types of control packets; there are no fair chances for newlineRPL control packets in the transmission queue; the RPL uses a constant retransmission newlinetimeout period in all nodes; and the IoT LLN uses a reactive approach to detect node newlinedisconnection. The shared cell in the slotframe is called as minimal cell newline