Topology Construction in RPL Networks over Beacon-Enabled 802.15.4

TL;DR

This paper introduces a scheme that integrates RPL routing with beacon-enabled IEEE 802.15.4 networks, enabling efficient topology construction with energy savings and full standard compliance.

Contribution

A novel method for coupling RPL with beacon-enabled IEEE 802.15.4 by encapsulating RPL DIO messages in beacon frames, improving topology setup efficiency.

Findings

Energy savings during topology construction

Reduced overhead compared to existing schemes

Full compliance with IEEE 802.15.4 and RPL standards

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new scheme that allows coupling beacon-enabled IEEE 802.15.4 with the RPL routing protocol while keeping full compliance with both standards. We provide a means for RPL to pass the routing information to Layer 2 before the 802.15.4 topology is created by encapsulating RPL DIO messages in beacon frames. The scheme takes advantage of 802.15.4 command frames to solicit RPL DIO messages. The effect of the command frames is to reset the Trickle timer that governs sending DIO messages. We provide a detailed analysis of the overhead incurred by the proposed scheme to understand topology construction costs. We have evaluated the scheme using Contiki and the instruction-level Cooja simulator and compared our results against the most common scheme used for dissemination of the upper-layer information in beacon-enabled PANs. The results show energy savings during the topology construction phase and in the steady state.