Performance Evaluation of CoAP and MQTT_SN Protocols

Internet of Things (IoT) protocols are a set of rules or standards that are used to facilitate communication between connected devices over a wireless network. One of the most important requirements of a wireless sensor networks (WSN) is power efficiency because it depends on the life span of the batteries of sensor nodes. This paper resolves to evaluate the performance of application-layer IoT protocols such as CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol) and MQTT_SN (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport for Sensor Networks) in terms of power efficiency. Contiki-OS and Cooja Simulator were utilized to conduct the simulation of the protocols and to collect the data of the nodes which was used to calculate the power consumption. Simulation Results show that CoAP is relatively more power efficient than MQTT_SN. It was also evaluated that the highest power consumption is happening at different power states for each protocol.