DRiPLOF: An RPL Extension for Multi-Interface Wireless Sensor Networks in Interference-Prone Environments

Abstract

The Routing Protocol for Low-power and Lossy Networks (RPL) is a popular routing layer protocol for multi-hop Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). However, typical RPL configurations are based on decade-old assumptions, leading to a mismatch with: (1) advances in wireless hardware; and (2) growing wireless contention. To soften the impact of external stressors (i.e., jamming and interference), we extended RPL to exploit the capabilities of modern multi-interfaced wireless devices. More specifically, our main contribution is the design, development, and evaluation of a novel RPL Objective Function (OF) which, through simulations, is compared to traditional single-interface approaches and a state-of-the-art multi-interface approach. We examine two scenarios, with and without the injection of jamming, respectively. Our proposed OF is shown to outperform, or otherwise perform similar to, all alternatives considered. In normal conditions, it auto-selects the best interface whilst incurring negligible protocol overhead. In our jamming simulations, it provides stable end-to-end delivery ratios exceeding 90%, whereas the closest alternative averages 65% and is considerably less stable. Given we have open-sourced our development codebase, our solution is an ideal candidate for adoption by RPL deployments that expect to suffer interference from competing technologies or are unable to select the best radio technology a priori.