Bird Flocking Congestion Control for CoAP/RPL/6LoWPAN Networks

Abstract

This paper proposes a congestion control solution for CoAP/RPL/6LoWPAN networks. CoAP/RPL/6LoWPAN has been considered as one of the most appropriate protocol stack for industrial applications of the Internet of Things (IoT). Since IoT nodes may have constrained resources, mechanisms used to control congestion must operate effectively with minimal consumption. In this paper, a method for congestion control in an IoT environment governed by the CoAP/RPL/6LoWPAN protocol stack is proposed. Our solution is based on the concept of bird flocking to guide packets in order to avoid congestion. Simulation shows that our proposal guarantees better results compared to congestion control mechanisms of the protocol stack in terms of data latency, packet loss ratio and packet delivery ratio.