6LoWPAN

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6LoWPAN (acronym of "IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks") [1] was a working group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). [2] It was created with the intention of applying the Internet Protocol (IP) even to the smallest devices, [3] enabling low-power devices with limited processing capabilities to participate in the Internet of Things. [1]

Contents

The 6LoWPAN group defined encapsulation, header compression, neighbor discovery and other mechanisms that allow IPv6 to operate over IEEE 802.15.4 based networks. Although IPv4 and IPv6 protocols do not generally care about the physical and MAC layers they operate over, the low-power devices and small packet size defined by IEEE 802.15.4 make it desirable to adapt to these layers. [4]

The base specification developed by the 6LoWPAN IETF group is RFC   4944 (updated by RFC   6282 with header compression, RFC   6775 with neighbor discovery optimization, RFC   8931 with selective fragment recovery and with smaller changes in RFC   8025 and RFC   8066). The problem statement document is RFC   4919. IPv6 over Bluetooth Low Energy using 6LoWPAN techniques is described in RFC   7668.

Application areas

The targets for IPv6 networking for low-power radio communication are devices that need wireless connectivity to many other devices at lower data rates for devices with very limited power consumption. The header compression mechanisms in RFC   6282 are used to allow IPv6 packets to travel over such networks.

IPv6 is also in use on the smart grid enabling smart meters and other devices to build a micro mesh network before sending the data back to the billing system using the IPv6 backbone. Some of these networks run over IEEE 802.15.4 radios, and therefore use the header compression and fragmentation as specified by RFC6282.[ citation needed ]

Thread

Thread is a standard from a group of more than fifty companies for a protocol running over 6LoWPAN to enable home automation. The specification is available at no cost as of 24 June 2022, but paid membership is required to implement the protocol. [5] [6] Version 1.0 of the specification was published on 2015-10-29. [5] The protocol will most directly compete with Z-Wave and Zigbee IP. [7]

Matter

Matter, which started as Project CHIP (Connected Home over IP) is an effort to standardize a protocol stack that could run over 6LoWPAN to enable home automation, by combining it with DTLS, CoAP and MQTT-SN [ citation needed ]

Functions

As with all link-layer mappings of IP, RFC4944 provides a number of functions. Beyond the usual differences between L2 and L3 networks, mapping from the IPv6 network to the IEEE 802.15.4 network poses additional design challenges (see RFC   4919 for an overview).

Adapting the packet sizes of the two networks

IPv6 requires the link maximum transmission unit (MTU) to be at least 1280 octets. [8] In contrast, IEEE 802.15.4's standard frame size is 127 octets. A maximum frame overhead of 25 octets and an optional but highly recommended security feature at the link layer poses an additional overhead of up to 21 octets are for AES-CCM-128. This leaves only 81 octets for the upper layers. Since this is so much less than 1280, 6LowPAN defines a fragmentation and reassembly layer. Further, the standard IPv6 Header is 40 octets long, so header compression is defined as well.

Address resolution

IPv6 nodes are assigned 128 bit IP addresses in a hierarchical manner, through an arbitrary length network prefix. IEEE 802.15.4 devices may use either of IEEE 64 bit extended addresses or, after an association event, 16 bit addresses that are unique within a PAN. There is also a PAN-ID for a group of physically collocated IEEE 802.15.4 devices.

Differing device designs

IEEE 802.15.4 devices are intentionally constrained in form factor to reduce costs (allowing for large-scale network of many devices), reduce power consumption (allowing battery powered devices) and allow flexibility of installation (e.g. small devices for body-worn networks). On the other hand, wired nodes in the IP domain are not constrained in this way; they can be larger and make use of mains power supplies.

Differing focus on parameter optimization

IPv6 nodes are geared towards attaining high speeds. Algorithms and protocols implemented at the higher layers such as TCP kernel of the TCP/IP are optimized to handle typical network problems such as congestion. In IEEE 802.15.4-compliant devices, energy conservation and code-size optimization remain at the top of the agenda.

Adaptation layer for interoperability and packet formats

An adaptation mechanism to allow interoperability between IPv6 domain and the IEEE 802.15.4 can best be viewed as a layer problem. Identifying the functionality of this layer and defining newer packet formats, if needed, is an enticing research area. RFC   4944 proposes an adaptation layer to allow the transmission of IPv6 datagrams over IEEE 802.15.4 networks.

Addressing management mechanisms

The management of addresses for devices that communicate across the two dissimilar domains of IPv6 and IEEE 802.15.4 is cumbersome, if not exhaustingly complex.

Routing considerations and protocols for mesh topologies in 6LoWPAN

Routing per se is a two phased problem that is being considered for low-power IP networking:

Several routing protocols have been proposed by the 6LoWPAN community such as LOAD, [9] DYMO-LOW, [10] HI-LOW. [11] However, only two routing protocols are currently legitimate for large-scale deployments: LOADng [12] standardized by the ITU under the recommendation ITU-T G.9903 and RPL [13] standardized by the IETF ROLL working group. [14]

Device and service discovery

Since IP-enabled devices may require the formation of ad hoc networks, the current state of neighboring devices and the services hosted by such devices will need to be known. IPv6 neighbour discovery extensions is an internet draft proposed as a contribution in this area.

Security

IEEE 802.15.4 nodes can operate in either secure mode or non-secure mode. Two security modes are defined in the specification in order to achieve different security objectives: Access Control List (ACL) and Secure mode [15]

Further reading

See also

Related Research Articles

IEEE 802.15 is a working group of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) IEEE 802 standards committee which specifies Wireless Specialty Networks (WSN) standards. The working group was formerly known as Working Group for Wireless Personal Area Networks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IPv4</span> Fourth version of the Internet Protocol

Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the first version of the Internet Protocol (IP) as a standalone specification. It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. IPv4 was the first version deployed for production on SATNET in 1982 and on the ARPANET in January 1983. It is still used to route most Internet traffic today, even with the ongoing deployment of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), its successor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IPv6</span> Version 6 of the Internet Protocol

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. IPv6 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to deal with the long-anticipated problem of IPv4 address exhaustion, and was intended to replace IPv4. In December 1998, IPv6 became a Draft Standard for the IETF, which subsequently ratified it as an Internet Standard on 14 July 2017.

The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet.

A MAC address is a unique identifier assigned to a network interface controller (NIC) for use as a network address in communications within a network segment. This use is common in most IEEE 802 networking technologies, including Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Within the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) network model, MAC addresses are used in the medium access control protocol sublayer of the data link layer. As typically represented, MAC addresses are recognizable as six groups of two hexadecimal digits, separated by hyphens, colons, or without a separator.

In computer networking, the maximum transmission unit (MTU) is the size of the largest protocol data unit (PDU) that can be communicated in a single network layer transaction. The MTU relates to, but is not identical to the maximum frame size that can be transported on the data link layer, e.g., Ethernet frame.

In computer networking, the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is one of the core communication protocols of the Internet protocol suite used to send messages to other hosts on an Internet Protocol (IP) network. Within an IP network, UDP does not require prior communication to set up communication channels or data paths.

A multicast address is a logical identifier for a group of hosts in a computer network that are available to process datagrams or frames intended to be multicast for a designated network service. Multicast addressing can be used in the link layer, such as Ethernet multicast, and at the internet layer for Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) or Version 6 (IPv6) multicast.

In computing, Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is a secure network protocol suite that authenticates and encrypts packets of data to provide secure encrypted communication between two computers over an Internet Protocol network. It is used in virtual private networks (VPNs).

IEEE 802.15.4 is a technical standard that defines the operation of a low-rate wireless personal area network (LR-WPAN). It specifies the physical layer and media access control for LR-WPANs, and is maintained by the IEEE 802.15 working group, which defined the standard in 2003. It is the basis for the Zigbee, ISA100.11a, WirelessHART, MiWi, 6LoWPAN, Thread, Matter and SNAP specifications, each of which further extends the standard by developing the upper layers, which are not defined in IEEE 802.15.4. In particular, 6LoWPAN defines a binding for the IPv6 version of the Internet Protocol (IP) over WPANs, and is itself used by upper layers such as Thread.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Contiki</span> Real-time operating system

Contiki is an operating system for networked, memory-constrained systems with a focus on low-power wireless Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Contiki is used for systems for street lighting, sound monitoring for smart cities, radiation monitoring and alarms. It is open-source software released under the BSD-3-Clause license.

Mobile IP is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard communications protocol that is designed to allow mobile device users to move from one network to another while maintaining a permanent IP address. Mobile IP for IPv4 is described in IETF RFC 5944, and extensions are defined in IETF RFC 4721. Mobile IPv6, the IP mobility implementation for the next generation of the Internet Protocol, IPv6, is described in RFC 6275.

IP multicast is a method of sending Internet Protocol (IP) datagrams to a group of interested receivers in a single transmission. It is the IP-specific form of multicast and is used for streaming media and other network applications. It uses specially reserved multicast address blocks in IPv4 and IPv6.

A wide variety of different wireless data technologies exist, some in direct competition with one another, others designed for specific applications. Wireless technologies can be evaluated by a variety of different metrics of which some are described in this entry.

TRILL is a networking protocol for optimizing bandwidth and resilience in Ethernet networks, implemented by devices called TRILL switches. TRILL combines techniques from bridging and routing, and is the application of link-state routing to the VLAN-aware customer-bridging problem. Routing bridges (RBridges) are compatible with, and can incrementally replace, previous IEEE 802.1 customer bridges. TRILL Switches are also compatible with IPv4 and IPv6, routers and end systems. They are invisible to current IP routers, and like conventional routers, RBridges terminate the broadcast, unknown-unicast and multicast traffic of DIX Ethernet and the frames of IEEE 802.2 LLC including the bridge protocol data units of the Spanning Tree Protocol.

An IPv6 packet is the smallest message entity exchanged using Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). Packets consist of control information for addressing and routing and a payload of user data. The control information in IPv6 packets is subdivided into a mandatory fixed header and optional extension headers. The payload of an IPv6 packet is typically a datagram or segment of the higher-level transport layer protocol, but may be data for an internet layer or link layer instead.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geoff Mulligan</span> American computer scientist

Geoff Mulligan is an American computer scientist who developed embedded internet technology and 6LoWPAN. He was chairman of the LoRa Alliance from its creation in 2015 until 2018, was previously founder and chairman of the IPSO Alliance, is a consultant on the Internet of Things, and in 2013, was appointed a Presidential Innovation Fellow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenWSN</span>

OpenWSN is a project created at the University of California Berkeley and extended at the INRIA and at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) which aims to build an open standard-based and open source implementation of a complete constrained network protocol stack for wireless sensor networks and Internet of Things. The root of OpenWSN is a deterministic MAC layer implementing the IEEE 802.15.4e TSCH based on the concept of Time Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH). Above the MAC layer, the Low Power Lossy Network stack is based on IETF standards including the IETF 6TiSCH management and adaptation layer. The stack is complemented by an implementation of 6LoWPAN, RPL in non-storing mode, UDP and CoAP, enabling access to devices running the stack from the native IPv6 through open standards.

RPL is a routing protocol for wireless networks with low power consumption and generally susceptible to packet loss. It is a proactive protocol based on distance vectors and operates on IEEE 802.15.4, optimized for multi-hop and many-to-one communication, but also supports one-to-one messages.

Static Context Header Compression(SCHC) is a standard compression and fragmentation mechanism defined in the IPv6 over LPWAN working group at the IETF. It offers compression and fragmentation of IPv6/UDP/CoAP packets to allow their transmission over the Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWAN).

References

  1. 1 2 Zach Shelby and Carsten Bormann (2011-05-23). "6LoWPAN: The wireless embedded Internet – Part 1: Why 6LoWPAN?". eetimes. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Retrieved 2022-06-24. in '6LoWPAN: The Embedded Internet', Shelby and Bormann redefine the 6LoWPAN acronym as "IPv6 over lowpower wireless area networks," arguing that "Personal" is no longer relevant to the technology.
  2. ↑ "IPv6 over Low power WPAN (6lowpan)". IETF . Retrieved 10 May 2016.
  3. ↑ Mulligan, Geoff, "The 6LoWPAN architecture", EmNets '07: Proceedings of the 4th workshop on Embedded networked sensors, ACM, 2007
  4. ↑ Kushalnagar, N.; Intel Corp; Montenegro, G.; Microsoft Corporation; Schumacher, C.; Danfoss A/S (August 2007). "Problems". IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPANs): Overview, Assumptions, Problem Statement, and Goals. IETF. doi: 10.17487/RFC4919 . RFC 4919 . Retrieved 2022-06-24.
  5. 1 2 "Thread 1.1 Specification Request Form". Thread Group. Retrieved 2022-06-24.
  6. ↑ "Thread Membership Benefits". Thread Group. Retrieved 2022-06-24.
  7. ↑ Sullivan, Mark (15 July 2014). "Nest, Samsung, ARM and others launch 'Thread' home automation network protocol". venturebeat.com. venture beat. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
  8. ↑ Deering, A.; Cisco; Hinden, R.; Nokia (December 1998). "Packet Size Issues". IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPANs): Overview, Assumptions, Problem Statement, and Goals. IETF. doi: 10.17487/RFC2460 . RFC 2460 . Retrieved 2022-06-24. IPv6 requires that every link in the internet have an MTU of 1280 octets or greater.
  9. ↑ Kim, K.; Daniel Park, S.; Montenegro, G.; Yoo, S.; Kushalnagar, N. (June 2007). 6LoWPAN Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing (LOAD). IETF. I-D draft-daniel-6lowpan-load-adhoc-routing-03. Retrieved 10 May 2016.
  10. ↑ Kim, K.; Montenegro, G.; Park, S.; Chakeres, I.; Perkins, C. (June 2007). Dynamic MANET On-demand for 6LoWPAN (DYMO-low) Routing. IETF. I-D draft-montenegro-6lowpan-dymo-low-routing-03. Retrieved 10 May 2016.
  11. ↑ Kim, K.; Yoo, S.; Daniel Park, S.; Lee, J.; Mulligan, G. (June 2007). Hierarchical Routing over 6LoWPAN (HiLow). IETF. I-D draft-daniel-6lowpan-hilow-hierarchical-routing-01. Retrieved 10 May 2016.
  12. ↑ Clausen, T.; Colin de Verdiere, A.; Yi, J.; Niktash, A.; Igarashi, Y.; Satoh, H.; Herberg, U.; Lavenu, C.; Lys, T.; Dean, J. (January 2016). The Lightweight On-demand Ad hoc Distance-vector Routing Protocol - Next Generation (LOADng). IETF. I-D draft-clausen-lln-loadng-14. Retrieved 10 May 2016.
  13. ↑ Winter, T.; Thubert, P.; Brandt, A.; Hui, J.; Kelsey, R.; Levis, P.; Pister, K.; Struik, R.; Vasseur, JP.; Alexander, R. (March 2012). RPL: IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks. IETF. doi: 10.17487/RFC6550 . RFC 6550 . Retrieved 10 May 2016.
  14. ↑ "Routing Over Low power and Lossy networks (roll)". IETF . Retrieved 10 May 2016.
  15. ↑ Park, S.; Kim, K.; Haddad, W.; Chakrabarti, S.; Laganier, J. (March 2011). IPv6 over Low Power WPAN Security Analysis. IETF. I-D draft-daniel-6lowpan-security-analysis-05. Retrieved 10 May 2016.
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