Stateless multicast forwarding with RPL in 6LowPAN sensor networks

Recent research efforts have resulted in efficient support for IPv6 in Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN), with the “IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low power and Lossy Networks” (RPL) being on the forefront as the state of the art routing approach. However, little attention has been paid to IPv6 multicast for networks of constrained devices. The “Multicast Forwarding Using Trickle” (Trickle Multicast) internet draft is one of the most noteworthy efforts, while RPL's specification also attempts to address the area but leaves many questions unanswered. In this paper we expose our concerns about the Trickle Multicast (TM) algorithm, backed up by thorough performance evaluation. We also introduce SMRF, an alternative multicast forwarding mechanism for RPL networks, which addresses TM's drawbacks. Simulation results demonstrate that SMRF achieves significant delay and energy efficiency improvements at the cost of a small increase in packet loss. We have extended the TCP/IP engine of the Contiki embedded Operating System to support both algorithms. Both implementations have been made available to the community.