A Survey of Limitations and Enhancements of the IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-power and Lossy Networks: A Focus on Core Operations

TL;DR

This survey reviews the limitations of the IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-power and Lossy Networks (RPL), assesses proposed enhancements, and identifies remaining challenges to guide future improvements for broader applicability.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive evaluation of existing solutions addressing RPL's core limitations and highlights areas needing further research for protocol enhancement.

Findings

Some weaknesses of RPL have been successfully addressed.

Many proposed solutions still fail to overcome key limitations.

The study identifies challenges for future protocol improvements.

Abstract

Driven by the special requirements of the Lowpower and Lossy Networks (LLNs), the IPv6 Routing Protocol for LLNs (RPL) was standardized by the IETF some six years ago to tackle the routing issue in such networks. Since its introduction, however, numerous studies have pointed out that, in its current form, RPL suffers from issues that limit its efficiency and domain of applicability. Thus, several solutions have been proposed in the literature in an attempt to overcome these identified limitations. In this survey, we aim mainly to provide a comprehensive review of these research proposals assessing whether such proposals have succeeded in overcoming the standard reported limitations related to its core operations. Although some of RPL weaknesses have been addressed successfully, the study found that the proposed solutions remain deficient in overcoming several others. Hence, the study investigates where such proposals still fall short, the challenges and pitfalls to avoid, thus would help researchers formulate a clear foundation for the development of further successful extensions in future allowing the protocol to be applied more widely.