A measurement study of TCP over RPL in low-power and lossy networks

Low-power and lossy networks (LLNs) comprised of thousands of embedded networking devices can be used in a variety of applications, such as smart grid automated metering infrastructures (AMIs) and wireless sensor networks. Connecting these LLNs to the Internet has even greater potential, leading to the emerging concept of the Internet of Things (IoT). With the goal of integrating LLNs into IoT, the IETF has recently standardized RPL and 6LoWPAN to allow the use of IPv6 on LLNs. Although there already exist several studies on the the performance of RPL and embedded IPv6 stack in LLN, performance measurement and characterization of TCP over RPL in multihop LLNs is yet to be studied. In this article, we present a comprehensive experimental study on the performance of TCP over RPL in an embedded IPv6-based LLN running over a 30-node multihop IEEE 802.15.4 testbed network. Our results and findings are aimed at investigating how embedded TCP interoperates with common Linux TCP and underlying RPL (and vice versa), which furthers our understanding of the performance trade-offs when choosing TCP over RPL in IPv6-based LLNs.