A green multipath TCP framework for industrial internet of things applications

Abstract

The concurrent use of a few transmission channels offered by the multipath version of the TCP protocol (MPTCP) becomes a widely accepted remedy for the quality of service and reliability issues. However, the common approaches to the multipath transfer organization do not give sufficient attention to the energy aspects, which are crucial for the resource-constrained devices in the Internet of Things domain. In this paper, a systematic tuning methodology of the MPTCP architectural modules – targeting the energy expenditure – is developed. By adopting a formal optimization approach, a new Scheduler, and a new Path Manager that promote conservative energy usage are designed. The proposed ‘green’ modules versions do not augment the protocol complexity. Next, explicit guidelines for the selection of the TCP variant to be used at the individual paths are provided. As confirmed by experiments involving physical devices and real networks, the established framework reduces the amount of dissipated energy by several percent (up to 50%) with respect to the default one. As a beneficial side-effect, the transmission throughput is increased and the protocol delay shortened in the uncertain networking conditions typical of industrial settings.