A Simple Data-Muling Protocol

More and more industrial infrastructures consider the use of industrial wireless sensor network (IWSN) technology to perform control activities in industry. The benefits stemmed from IWSNs include flexible access (no wires are required) to elements that may interact with the factory floor. However, this support introduces new challenges: muling the almost permanent connectivity given by wired infrastructures is no longer available in IWSNs. To address this challenge, this paper explores data muling as the ability of transferring data between different elements within an industrial infrastructure. The proposed data-muling protocol uses a dual discovery and update (D&U) strategy. The prototype evaluation carried out on 6LowPan over IEEE 802.15.4 motes provides some insights on the performance that this type of infrastructure may offer within an industrial context. This paper also offers an extensive benchmark that may be used to test bounds and limitations of the proposed D&U protocol on the industrial use-cases.