On the performance of 6LoWPAN through experimentation

The Internet of Things (IoT) research activities are oriented towards the standardisation of communication protocols and platforms for globally interconnected smart objects. 6LoWPAN is a standardised protocol stack aiming at providing the seamless interconnection between IPv6 Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and Internet, while maintaining low-power consumption. In this paper, we present and investigate the performance of 6LoWPAN, being one of the most promising solutions for the implementation of IoT paradigm. The evaluation is performed through experimentation on the “European Laboratory of Wireless Communications for the Future Internet” (EuWIn) facilities developed within the Network of Excellence, NEWCOM#, at the University of Bologna. We report results in terms of average round-trip-time, packet loss rate and throughput for different payload sizes and number of hops, both for unicast and multicast traffics.