End-to-end communication protocol in IoT-enabled ZigBee network: Investigation and performance analysis

Abstract

ZigBee is the prominent technology on the Internet of Things that enables smart applications and services. However, this technology forms personal area networks, which will not directly communicate with internet end users. The IoT-enabled Zigbee devices cannot handle the IPv6 packets, which have a maximum packet size of 1280 bytes, and the transmission of IPv6 packets over ZigBee-based IEEE 802.15.4 networks, which will be performed using a gateway. via the ZigBee coordinator. The gateways and the ZigBee coordinator must complete the neighbor discovery process, which increases the coordinator’s complexity. Additional ZigBee devices suffer from header size problems, routing structures, and data forwarding issues. This paper presents an efficient end-to-end communication protocol for IoT-enabled ZigBee devices and with an Internet host using the 6LoWPAN protocol. This 6LoWPAN connects IP-based infrastructures with a collection of Zigbee devices that provide end-to-end communication to route the IPv6 packets into ZigBee-enabled IoT networks. Next, we proposed the RPL-AODV routing protocol, which refers to the capacity to forward or route the data packets from one Zigbee device to the 6LoWPAN Boarder Router (6BR) via several hops. This proposed routing protocol combines the advantages of RPL and AODV routing protocols in ZigBee devices of IoT networks that establish the path from the origin node to the target node on an on-demand basis. Finally, we evaluated the performance of this protocol with various metrics and found improved results compared to existing protocols.