Multipath TCP Over Multi-Hop Heterogeneous Wireless IoT Networks

With the advent of 5G and beyond communication technologies, the consumer IoT devices are evolving from current generation to next generation. Next generation IoT devices can support multiple communication interfaces and perform more functions. Accordingly, IoT network technologies must adapt to the emerging multi-link devices to improve network performance. Multipath TCP (MPTCP) is desired for networks with multi-link devices and has achieved success in computer networks. However, MPTCP has not been well studied for wireless networks. To that end, this paper presents MPTCP techniques for heterogeneous wireless IoT networks consisting of IEEE 802.15.4 nodes and 5G nodes. We propose a path builder, an adaptive congestion controller and an innovative path scheduler. We evaluated our MPTCP techniques under varying network configurations. Compared with conventional MPTCP, the proposed MPTCP can significantly reduce the number of packet transmissions, shorten packet delivery time, improve network throughput and packet delivery rate.