Hierarchical routing and path recovery algorithm in home 6LoWPAN networks

HiLow is a well-known hierarchical routing protocol used in 6LoWPAN, which has some drawbacks in accessibility, efficiency and path recoverability. In this paper, we have improved the HiLow protocol in aspects of interconnection between Internet and 6LoWPAN and network path recovery mechanism. Using an address mapping table to store both EUI-64 address and 16 bit short address, Internet nodes can access the 6LoWPAN nodes by an IPv6 address, which is generated by the EUI-64 address and IPv6 prefix. In addition, the common neighbor nodes are added into the neighbor table to improve routing efficiency between neighbors and path recovery mechanism is proposed for our modified protocol. Due to the benefits of additional data structure and path recovery mechanism, our protocol improves the routing efficiency and effectively reduce the cost for network reorganization caused by FFD (Full Function Device) failures and RFD (Reduced Function Device) failures.