mRPL++: Smarter-HOP for optimizing mobility in RPL

Abstract

Routing Protocol for Low power and lossy networks (RPL) is a proactive algorithm for Low-power and Lossy Networks (LLNs). Recent growth in Internet of Things (IoT) applications has made proactive handling of mobility apparent. While RPL does not tackle mobility, mRPL addresses it by adopting a proactive Hand-Off strategy. Since this strategy follows a greedy approach to select the next hop, a best route may not be always chosen. This paper proposes mRPL++, an extension of mRPL, to ensure best route selection in mobile scenarios. We have implemented mRPL++ in the Contiki 6LoWPAN/RPL stack and validated it through extensive simulations.