A fast DODAG formation method to improve trickle algorithm with RPL

RPL (IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy networks) is a routing protocol recently standardized by the IETF. RPL organizes a network topology with thousands of nodes that are energy-constrained by constructing one or more Destination Oriented DAGs (DODAGs), and therefore it is crucial for the speed that large amount of the nodes join the DODAGs with few costs of energy consumption if possible. The Trickle algorithm is used by RPL to determine whether (and when) a networking message can be transmitted. In this paper an improved Trickle algorithm, namely C-Trickle, is proposed in order to accelerate the DODAG formation process. C-Trickle adjusts the DIO message transmission interval dynamically according to the number of the node's neighbors. We carry out different simulations with different network scenarios to evaluate the performance of C-Trickle. Results show that C-Trickle can accelerate the DODAG formation process especially with high node degree.