Title: Energy-aware and load-balanced parent selection in RPL routing for wireless sensor networks

Authors: Mohammad Nassiri; Mohammad Boujari; Seyed Vahid Azhari

Addresses: Computer Department, Faculty of Engineering, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran ' Computer Department, Faculty of Engineering, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran ' School of Computer Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Narmak, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: The IEEE 802.15.4 and RPL standards are commonly used for MAC and routing in wireless sensor networks, respectively. In single-hop networks, duty cycling is supported by the beacon-enabled mode of 802.15.4. In multi-hop networks, 802.15.4 uses a cluster-tree while RPL is based on a DoDAG structure. Several studies report that the performance of RPL over cluster-tree-based 802.15.4 degrades owing to the incompatibility of these structures. In this paper, we propose a dynamic parent selection in RPL that takes both load and energy constraints into consideration. We base our work on a modified cluster-tree MAC, which is compatible with RPL and permits selecting multiple parents. For each packet, we select the preferred parent based on a composite metric incorporating remaining energy and recent load on paths to the sink. Simulation results show that our mechanism extends network lifetime and improves network performance in terms of end-to-end delay and packet delivery ratio.

Keywords: wireless sensor networks; WSNs; IEEE 802.15.4; beacon-enabled; DoDAG; parent selection; network lifetime; superframe; upstream energy; upstream load; energy awareness; load balancing; RPL routing; cluster tree MAC; medium access control; simulation; end-to-end delay; packet delivery ratio.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWMC.2015.073105

International Journal of Wireless and Mobile Computing, 2015 Vol.9 No.3, pp.231 - 239

Received: 06 Jan 2015
Accepted: 20 Jun 2015

Published online: 19 Nov 2015 *

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