MobiRPL: Adaptive, Robust, and RSSI-based Mobile Routing in Low Power and Lossy Networks

Abstract

This paper tackles the mobile routing issues in lowpowerand lossy networks (LLNs). The IPv6 standard routingprotocol for LLNs, termed IPv6 routing protocol for low-powerand lossy networks (RPL), has mostly been investigated in staticLLNs and it has no explicit mechanism to support mobility. Inaddition, there is no mobile routing protocol that works well inmobile LLNs. Considering the importance of mobility supportin many LLN applications, this work designs and implementsMobiRPL, an adaptive, robust, and received signal strengthindicator (RSSI)-based mobile routing scheme based on theRPL standard. To cope with network dynamics, the MobiRPLdesign focuses more on maintaining reliable routing topologythan on minimizing energy consumption. This design choicesignificantly improves reliability while maintaining the acceptableenergy consumption of mobile LLNs. We implement MobiRPLon Contiki OS, and evaluate its effectiveness extensively throughCooja simulation and testbed experiments. Our results fromthe testbed show that MobiRPL improves mobile nodes packetdelivery ratio by 11.3% compared to RPL and reduces the energyconsumption of mobile nodes by 73.3% compared to the baselinescheme, i.e.,the lightweight on-demand ad-hoc distance-vectorrouting protocol - next generation (LOADng).