Internet of

Things

•RPL
•(Lecture 10)
 Low Power and Lossy Networks
• (LLNs)
Low power and lossy networks (LLNs) are those in which the routers and
their interconnects are highly resource constrained.
• Routers are usually limited in terms of processing power, battery and
memory, and their interconnects are characterized by unstable links with
high loss rates, low data rates and low packet delivery rates.
• The traffic patterns are also varied, and may comprise of point to point
(P2P), point to multipoint (P2MP) or multipoint to point (MP2P)
patterns.
• They can potentially comprise thousands of nodes.
 Challenges of routing in
LLNs
• Since sensor networks are commonly deployed in environments with
potentially high data-traffic and in many cases require a time-sensitive
response, it is necessary that such concerns need to be addressed while
designing a routing protocol for LLNs.
• The existing routing protocols such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Ad Hoc
on Demand Vector (AODV) and Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) have been
extensively evaluated and found to be unsuccessful satisfying the requirements
of LLNs.
• For example, path selection must be designed to take into consideration the
specific power capabilities, attributes and functional characteristics of the links
and nodes in the network.
 Need of a new
• protocol
The ROLL (Routing over Low-power and lossy networks) Working Group
was created to specify a routing protocol that could route data efficiently
over LLNs.
• ROLL primarily focused on the determining the routing requirements for
the following scenarios: industrial, connected home or building and
urban sensor networks.
• This group believed that technology was surely transitioning to IPv6, and
hence aimed to provide an IPv6 only routing.
 RP
•L
Routing Protocol for Low power and Lossy Networks (RPL) is a distance
vector routing protocol.
• Here the routing is based on Destination oriented Acyclic graphs or
DODAGs.
• RPL mainly targets collection-based networks, where nodes periodically send
measurements to a collection point.
• A key feature of RPL is that it represents a specific routing solution for low
power and lossy networks.
• The protocol was designed to be highly adaptive to network conditions and to
provide alternate routes, whenever default routes are inaccessible.
• Before Understanding RPL and How these DODAGs are formed, we need to
understand some basic terminology, and Key concepts , which are at the Heart
of this Routing Protocol.
RP
L
 DAG (Directed Acyclic
• Graph)
It is a Graph that contains no cycle.
• We see such kind of graphs in Spanning trees.
• The destination of the nodes in a DAG is known as Root.
• Root has no outgoing edge.
• An edge that is directed towards the Root is called Up Edge.
• An edge which is directed away from root is called Down Edge.
 Destination Oriented DAG
(DODAG)
• This is a special kind of DAG where each node wants to reach a single
destination.

• Each DODAG has an IPv6 ID (128 bit). This ID is given to its root only. And as
long as the root doesn’t change ID also doesn’t change.
• Each new shape Of a DODAG means a new DODAG version.
 Rank in
• A DODAG
node’s Rank defines the nodes individual position relative to other nodes
with respect to a DODAG root.
• Rank increases in the Down direction and decreases in the Up direction.
• The exact way Rank is computed depends on the DAGs Objective Function
(OF).
 Objective
• Function
It helps us to decide whether we are near to the root or away from it.
• Objective Function is decided by a programmer or designer.
• It is something which we want to minimize.
• It can be energy, it can be Latency.
• And once we decide what we want to minimize, we give it a Number.
 RPL
• Instance
When we have one or More DODAGs, then each DODAG is an instance.
• Figure shows two RPL instances.
Parent and child node in
DODAG
• Parent is where the Arrow is pointing towards.
• And a Child is where the arrow comes from.
• Parents can have multiple children.
Storing vs Non-Storing node in
DODAG
• Storing : Storing nodes keep the whole routing table.
• They know how to go from one node to another.
• Non-Storing : They are simple, they don’t store an entire Routing
Table, they only know about their Parents.
RPL Control
messages
• There are five main types of control messages supported by RPL:
1. DIO (DODAG Information Object):
• This message is Multicasted downwards.
• A node in a DODAG may multicast this message, which lets other nodes
know about it.
• Things like whether the node is grounded or not, whether it is storing or
non-storing etc.
• It announces other nodes “if they are interested to join , Please Let Me
know.
• This message carries information that allows a node to discover a
node,
learn its configuration parameters, select a DODAG parent set, and
maintain the DODAG.
RPL Control
messages
2. DIS: (DODAG Information Solicitation):
• When no announcement is heard, and if a node wants to join a
DODAG, it sends a control message by itself.
• For that it wants to know If any DODAG exists.
• So the message which it sends is Like “ Is there any DODAG ? “.
RPL Control
messages
3. DAO (Destination Advertisement Object):
• It is a “request to join” sent by a Child to parent or root.
• This message requests to allow the child to join to a DODAG.
• This is used to propagate destination information upward along the
DODAG.
• In storing mode, DAO is unicast to selected parents.
• In non-storing mode, it is unicast to the DODAG root.
RPL Control
messages
4. DAO-ACK (Destination Advertisement Object Acknowledgement):
• It is a response sent by a root or parent to the child.
• This response can either be a Yes or No.
• The DAO-ACK message is sent as a unicast packet by a DAO recipient
(a DAO parent or DODAG root) in response to a unicast DAO message.
RPL Control
messages
RPL Control
messages
5. CC: Consistency Check:
• The CC message is used to check secure message counters and issue
challenge-responses.
• A CC message must be sent as a secured RPL message.
RPL Control
messages
Example
2
Routing using
RPL
Thank
you