CASAN: A new communication architecture for sensors based on CoAP

Abstract

Sensor networks have long been an active research field. However, deployments are still often specialized for one particular task while emerging commercial products use proprietary low-end technologies. The new CoAP protocol, designed for resource constrained devices and being standardized by the IETF may bring a partial answer to this divergence. However, complexity of needed protocol stacks may limit real deployments. In this paper, we propose a new, open and pragmatic distributed architecture for sensor and actuator networks, based on CoAP, whose goal is to further reduce constraints on devices. By shifting intelligence to a master node and keeping only what is really needed on sensors, it is possible to reduce software complexity on sensors, while keeping a secure, reliable and scalable system providing sensor resources to the global Internet.