DCM-RPL: A Distributed Competition Mobility Management Scheme for RPL/6LoWPAN

The IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) as a reliable and energy-efficient routing mechanism has become the de facto standard routing protocol of IPv6 over Low-powered Wireless Personal Area Network (6LoWPAN). However, it is designed for static wireless sensor networks and is not suitable for mobile scenarios. When mobile nodes (MNs) exist in the 6LoWPAN network, repeated link disruptions and topology changes lead to data packets loss and affect network stability. An increasing number of mobile applications force the improvement of RPL protocols for supporting mobility. In this study, a distributed competition and mobility-aware RPL routing protocol (DCM-RPL) is proposed to carry out mobility management and alleviate the network burden in the mobile scenario. A new preferred parent-discovering mechanism for MNs based on a distributed competition algorithm integrated with Objective Function is designed, which can dramatically reduce power consumption in the new parent node (PN)-discovering phase. To reduce data loss during the node-moving process, a packet-caching mechanism is proposed in the PN update phase. Finally, test-beds are set up and simulated in the Cooja simulator. Comparing the performance of the DCM-RPL in terms of switching delay, energy consumption, and PDR with the RPL and its mobility-aware variant (mRPL and EC-MRPL); the simulation results show that the proposed scheme maintains efficiency.