A Self Sustaind 6LoWPAN of a Sleepy Multi-Sensors with OND Support

Abstract

The IPv6 Low-power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN) is a key technology to the realization of Wireless Embedded Internet [1]. However, the 6LoWPAN link [2] is characterized as lossy, low power, low-bit-rate, and short-range communications. It is common with such constraints that many nodes attempts to save their energy through long sleeping periods. This paper presents a novel deployment strategy for a self-sustained network of IPv6 devices. The major focus is on the optimization of the communication protocol stack for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) to support nodes on sleeping mode. Recently, significant efforts have been made towards the standardization of the IoT protocol stack [3], which mostly has been implemented on the popular Contiki operating system. The protocol stack has been enhanced by implementing an optimized version of the Neighbor Discovery Protocol [4]. The usage of the Contiki MAC Radio Duty Cycling Protocol notably reduces and improves the energy consumption of network nodes. In our deployment prototype, each node is equipped with a rechargeable battery and a small solar panel to harvest the ambient light while performing measurements. Preliminary results demonstrate that the proposed node architecture and protocol stack optimization provide 15x fold of energy saving compared to base architecture with no stack optimization.