6LoWPAN (IPv6 over Low-power
Wireless Personal Area
Networks)
MAITREYI SINGH
2010110383
ms790@snu.edu.in
What is LoWPAN?
• LoWPAN stands for Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks.
• It is a protocol developed for communication between devices with limited power and
processing resources, such as sensors and other low-power devices, over wireless networks.
• It provides a reliable and secure communication protocol for low-power devices, making
them part of the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem.
• Devices on the same LoWPAN can communicate with each other using familiar IP
networking, allowing developers to use standard application protocols like HTTP and CoAP.
INTRODUCTION TO
6LoWPAN
• 6LoWPAN stands for IPv6 over Low-power Wireless Personal Area Networks
• It is a type of communication protocol designed to be used with small, low power devices that
transmit data using IEEE 802.15.4 standards.
• It allows these lightweight machines and sensors to communicate via Internet Protocol (IP),
making them easy to integrate into existing IoT networks or use as standalone systems.
• 6LoWPAN uses IPv6 as the network layer protocol and 6LoWPAN adaptation layer to compress
and fragment IPv6 packets for transmission over low-power wireless networks with limited
bandwidth and data rate.
HOW DOES 6LoWPAN WORK?
• 6LoWPAN technology is a simple mesh
technology that makes the individual nodes IP
enabled.
• Edge router is the core of 6LoWPAN network
that link the network to the other IP internet.
• It is responsible for routing 6LoWPAN packets to
IPv6 packet and assigning IPv6 prefixes in the
6LoWPAN network.
• 6LoWPAN can interact with 802.15.4 devices
and also other types of devices on an IP
Network.
• It uses AES 128 link layer security, which AES is a
block cipher having key size of 128/192/256 bits.
It provides link authentication and encryption.
BASIC REQUIREMENTS OF 6LoWPAN:
• The device should be having sleep mode in order to support the battery saving.
• Minimal memory requirement.
• Routing overhead should be lowered.
FEATURES OF 6LoWPAN:
•
•
•
•
It is used with IEEE 802.15.4 in the 2.4GHz band.
Outdoor range ~ 200 m (maximum)
Data rate : 200kbps (maximum)
Maximum number of nodes ~ 100
IPv6 AND IT’S NEED
• IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol, which
has been in use since 1994.
• It was designed to replace its predecessor, IPv4 and addresses several security concerns
with it
• IPv6 has an expanded 128-bit address space, compared to the 32-bit addresses of IPv4,
allowing for trillions of unique IP addresses.
• It supports auto configuration so that devices can be automatically assigned network
parameters like IP address without having to use manual settings.
• Its simplified header format and improved processing speeds lead to lower overhead
compared with IPv4 protocols.
• Overall, IPv6 provides better security mechanisms via authentication and encryption
capabilities as well as advanced Quality of Service features such as priority specifications
and flow labeling options.
HOW IPv6 helps IOT’s and
6LoWPAN
• Increased Address Space
• Efficient Routing
• Security
• Quality of Service (QoS)
• Simplified Addressing
6LoWPAN OVERVIEW
• 6LoWPAN protocol is an adaption layer allowing to transport IPv6 packets over 802.15.4 links.
• Uses 802.15.4 in unslotted CSMA/CA mode (strongly suggests beacons for link-layer device
discovery).
• Based on IEEE standard 802.15.4 -2003
• Fragmentation/ reassembly of Ipv6 packets
• Compression of IPv6 and UDP/ICMP headers
• Mesh routing support (mesh under)
• Low processing/ storage costs.
ARCHITECTURE
•
•
•
•
LoWPANs are stub networks.
Ad- hoc LoWPAN – No route outside the LoWPAN
Simple LoWPAN – Single edge router
Extended LoWPAN – Multiple edge routers with
common backbone link.
• Device types: HOST (H), ROUTER (R), EDGE ROUTER
(ER)
• Edge Router – Runs special protocols
-- Simplifies operation
-- Shared database: Whiteboard
6LoWPAN FORMAT
• 6LoWPAN is an adaption header format
 Enables the use of IPv6 over lower- power wireless links
 IPv6 header compression
 UDP header compression
• Format initially defined in RFC4944 updated by RFC6282
• 6LoWPAN makes use of IPv6 address compression
THE 6LoWPAN FORMAT
ADDRESSING
6LoWPAN ADDRESSING
• IPv6 addresses are compressed in 6LoWPAN
• A LoWPAN works on the principle of
 flat address spaces (wireless network is one IPv6 subnet)
 with unique MAC addresses (e.g. 64-bit or 16-bit)
• 6LoWPAN compresses IPv6 addresses by
 Eliding the IPv6 prefix - Global prefix known by all nodes in network
- Link-local prefix indicated by header compression format
 Compressing the IID - Elided for link-local communication
- Compressed for multihop dst/src addresses
•
•
Compressing with a well-known “context”
Multicast addresses are compressed
THE 6LoWPAN FORMAT
HEADER COMPRESSION
HEADER COMPRESSION
•
Large IPv6 datagram needs to be transmitted
•
How to compress the header to save resources? Integrate Layer 2 and Layer 3 compression
IP HEADER COMPRESSION (IPHC)
• In the best case, the LOWPAN_IPHC can compress the IPv6 header down to two octets
 the dispatch octet and
 the LOWPAN_IPHC encoding with link-local communication
• When routing over multiple IP hops, LOWPAN_IPHC can compress the IPv6 header down to 7
octets
 1 octet dispatch, 1 octet LOWPAN_IPHC, 1 octet Hop Limit, 2 octet Source Address, 2 octet
Destination Address
THE 6LoWPAN FORMAT
FRAGMENTATION
FRAGMENTATION
•
IPv6 requires underlying links to support Minimum Transmission Units (MTUs) of at least
1280 bytes.
•
IEEE 802.15.4 leaves approximately 80-100 bytes of payload.
•
RFC4944 defines fragmentation and reassembly of IPv6
•
The performance of large IPv6 packets fragmented over low-power wireless mesh
networks is poor
Lost fragments cause whole packet to be retransmitted
Low-bandwidth and delay of the wireless channel
6LoWPAN application protocols should avoid fragmentation
Compression should be used on existing IP application protocols when used over 6LoWPAN
if possible




FRAGMENTATION
• Impact of fragmentation in LoWPANs
• Assumptions
 p Uncorrelated packet loss probability
 n Number of fragments
• • Probability of datagram loss: 1-(1-p)^n
FRAGMENTATION
6LoWPAN SETUP & OPERATIONS
• Autoconfiguration is important in embedded networks
• In order for a 6LoWPAN network to start functioning:
1. Link-layer connectivity between nodes (commissioning)
2. Network layer address configuration, discovery of neighbors, registrations (bootstrapping)
3. Routing algorithm sets up paths (route initialization)
4. Continuous maintenance of 1-3
ADVANTAGES
&
DISADVANTAGES
ADVANTAGES
• Low-Power Consumption
• Easy Integration with IPv6
• Scalability
• Makes it possible to construct low bit rate IP networks over wireless links for
instance.
• Can merge multiple physical transmission technologies and even evolve over time,
without any impact on connected devices.
• Networks with different power capabilities can be connected
DISADVANTAGES
• Security: 6LoWPAN does not provide built-in security features, which means that devices
using the protocol are vulnerable to security threats such as eavesdropping and
unauthorized access.
• Neighbour Discovery
• Service Discovery
• Routing optimization issues comprise nested multilink, multilayer, reliability, safety and
many other internal problems; those problems significantly restrict the sensible
deployment of the network
• To automatically locate other sensors and controllers and available higher layer services.
RECENT DEVELOPMENNTS
1. HEADER COMPRESSION ALGORITHM FOR ENHANCEMENT OF
THE QUALITY-OF-SERVICE PARAMETER
• Most work on the header compression emphasizes compressing the source and
destination addresses and optimally eliding fields containing default values.
• This approach reduced the header size to the lowest possible value of 2 bytes.
• Internet supports an MTU of 1280 bytes compared to 127 bytes of 6LoWPAN
• Difference in the MTUs cause fragmentation of every IPv6 packet to be transmitted
over 6LoWPAN becomes evident.
• However, No compression algorithm is used to reduce the redundancy of the
fragmentation header. Making fragmentation unavoidable.
• A new method for the aggregation of data over a network has been discussed.
• This method exploits the redundancy in the fragmentation header the datagram size field
of 11 bits carries the same value for all the fragments belonging to the same IPv6 packet,
thus making it redundant.
• This field is only included in the first and the last fragments of an IPv6 packet for accurate
reassembly at the receiver.
• This reduces the fragment header of 32 bits to 21 bits
a.) HC1 compression techniques and its Drawbacks
• In HC1 compression techniques , it is possible to reduce the header size from 40- to
just 2- bytes.
• The drawbacks of the HC1 compression algorithm are as follows: While connecting over the Internet, the address need not always be link-local. It
can be a unique global, multicast, or broadcast address.
 To support services ranging from plain text transfer to high-speed multimedia
transfer, the traffic parameters and flow labels become crucial.
 It does not accommodate XMDP, AMQP, and MQTT protocols.
b.) Novel Header Compression Algorithm
• This method was designed to mitigate the abovementioned issues. Due to the difference in
MTU for a standard 6LoWPAN network and IPv6 protocol, the probability of fragmentation of the
datagram was very high.
• The Fragmentation header carries the datagram size (11), datagram tag (16), and the datagram
offset (8) fields (included in the last fragment alone).
• Datagram tag is necessary for reassembly at the receiver.
• Datagram size field, is crucial for buffer allocation.
• Datagram size field is only included in the first and the last fragment for proper reassembly at the
receiver. It is removed from the rest of the fragmented frames.
• Similarly, datagram tag is kept in only the first and last fragment it is replaced by a dispatch type
field. Dispatch type is used to match all the fragments to their respective original packet during
reassembly.
• As the communication is NAK-based, all lost packets are retrieved before reassembly,
ensuring that even if the first fragment comes out of sequence, the original IPv6 packet can
be received.
• Datagram size cannot be removed entirely as the lower layers do not know the actual size,
affecting transmission effectiveness and accuracy.
RESULTS:
•
Assuming an IPv6 packet size of 1000 bytes and a 6LoWPAN Maximum Transmission Unit
(MTU) of 100 bytes.
•
The original implementation requires 10 fragments with a total header size of 49 bytes.
•
The proposed solution requires a header size of only 41 bytes and can be reduced to 38
bytes for an optimal size.
•
The average data transmission rate of a conventional 6LoWPAN network is 30kbps.
Therefore, the time taken by the network component to process one packet using the
original implementation is 13.06ms, while the proposed method takes 10.13ms.
• For evaluating the efficiency of the algorithm, a WSN with 5
sensor nodes and one Border Router was designed.
• In the chosen network, 1 represents the border router, 2 to
6 constitute the sensor node which act as clients and 7 is
the external node belonging to an IPv6 network.
• Nodes 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 have a shorter minimum inter-packet
time compared to node 7 because of reduced overhead
through header compression.
• The power requirements for the Border router and Sky 1
node are higher than other nodes.
• This is because the Border router assigns context identifier
for WSN nodes, receives messages from WSN and external
nodes, and transmits them.
• The Border router has the highest radio on percentage.
• The power consumption for reception is higher than transmission.
• However, the proposed header compression algorithm reduces power consumption for
transmission and improves QoS parameters
2. IMPROVEMENT IN EXISTING 6LoWPAN-RPL FOR CONTENT
BASED ROUTING
• RPL (Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks) is a routing protocol designed for Wireless
Sensor Networks (WSN).
• The protocol has the disadvantage of high packet loss due to network instability.
• To address this issue, the paper suggests designing a content-based routing feature in RPL that is to
add to RPL.
• Content - based routing determines the routing path of a packet based on its content, rather than its
destination.
• The process of designing this content-based routing feature involves creating a DODAG (Directed
Acyclic Graph) and exchanging control messages between nodes in the network.
• It supports all types of traffic patterns but is optimized for many-to-one
• The routing path is determined by
content, and packets belonging to
the same content can route on the
same path and be collected at a sink
node.
• DIO- DODAG Information Object
• DIS- DODAG Information
Solicitation
• DAO - DODAG Advertisement
Object
• DAO- ACK - DODAG
acknowledgment
RESULTS:
• The data was taken where the performance of network was analyzed based on the
following parameters:
• Network latency
• Packet delivery ratio.
• The simulation results involve packet received per node, delay, average power
consumption etc.
• A DODAG with two sink nodes and all other
nodes was created that acted as senders.
• The green area represents the transmission
range of the nodes, which is 100 percent.
• The gray color area is affected by interference
due to packet transmission.
• The average power consumption of the sensor
nodes in terms of radio transmits, radio listen,
LPM, CPU, etc. (where the x-axis represents the
nodes, and the y-axis represents power in mW.)
• The packet delivery ratio at the sink node shows all nine nodes in the network,
where the x-axis represents nodes, and the y-axis represents packets received.
3. MM – SPEED MULTIPATH MULTI-SPEED ROUTING
PROTOCOL IN 6LoWPAN NETWORKS
• Here 6LoWPAN adaption of the geographic routing protocol for Multipath Multi-SPEED (MMSPEED) is
presented.
• The MMSPEED routing protocol achieves the following:
a) Taking routing decisions for localized packets without updating the global network state
b) To provide different types of options in QoS in the domains of reliability and timeliness.
• The routing mechanism based on the geographic location has been adopted in place of node IDbased routing protocols .
• All sensor nodes can get their geographical location using a Global Positioning System (GPS), or
services of distributed location.
• The information of the location can be shared by using ”periodic location update packets” to its
nearest neighbors
• Every node has information of the location of its nearest neighbor within the range
of the radio.
• The SPEED protocol allows every node to estimate the delay to every neighbor and
measure the speed based on the destination-to-neighbor distance.
• Node then sends a packet to a neighbor with a progress speed greater than
SetSpeed.
• The nodes in the congested area reduce their workload by dropping the packets
and holding one node for forwarding packets whose progress speed is higher than
SetSpeed.
• To reduce incoming traffic of packets from neighboring nodes, backpressure
packets are issued.
• Multiple layers of speed in the network is guaranteed by the MMSPEED protocol.
• MMSPEED protocol provides service differentiation in the domain of reliability by controlling
the number of forwarding paths required to achieve the required level of reliability
• In the MMSPEED protocol when a node detects an event, it generates a packet
x to be sent to the destination node.
• The source node selects the appropriate deadline, deadline(x), and required
probability for reaching Preq(x), based on the content of the data.
• MMSPEED forwards the packet with source-todestination deadline and
essential reaching probability directing to its destination.
• It classifies it into the appropriate speed layers depending on the end-to-end
deadlines and geographic distance towards the destination.
• The SPEED routing protocol with the use of feedback control and non-deterministic
geographic forwarding techniques, maintains a required delivery speed in different
networks.
• This protocol offers real-time multicast, unicast, and anycast communication services,
allowing packets to be sent at a speed over a desired value.
• The speed parameter ensures that the advancement in distance in the next hop at each
transmission hop is completed within a bounded time..
• The SPEED and MMSPEED protocols are designed to function in multi-hop networks using
three messages.
• The Beacon message – notifies neighbor nodes of a node’s presence
• The Backpressure beacon message - use to address network congestion & void avoidance
• The Data packet message – includes both data and additional information
RESULTS:
•
The data was taken where the performance of MMSPEED, SPEED, and HiLoW, in a
6LoWPAN, have been evaluated.
•
Through simulations, the reliability of the different protocols in the 6LoWPAN network has
been calculated.
•
It is been found that MMSPEED (or MULSPEED for short) is more reliable than the other
protocols due to its different speed paths, which allow packets to use different paths.
•
SPEED protocol has only a one-speed path, making it less reliable than MULSPEED.
•
The MULSPEED’s delivery ratio is higher than SPEED’s due to its multiple speed paths.
•
The transmission delay has no significant difference when all nodes have an equal
deadline.
• However, MULSPEED’s good performance comes at the cost of increased
energy consumption due to the complexity of its computations.
• MULSPEED uses multipath forwarding by transferring duplicate packets
and uses many hops in the different paths.
• This leads to consuming more power by the radio module of the sensor
node.
4. IDS IN 6LoWPAN
• It proposes a detection strategy for identifying malicious activities in 6LoWPAN networks
used in the Internet of Things (IoT).
• 6LoWPAN is a communication protocol used in low-power, low-bandwidth wireless networks
commonly used in IoT devices.
• The 6LoWPAN is a communication protocol used in low-power, low-bandwidth wireless
networks commonly used in IoT devices.
• It includes collecting a dataset of network traffic data and using it to train the machine
learning model to classify normal and malicious activities in the network.
• The performance of the proposed strategy was evaluated using various metrics such as
accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score.
RESULTS:
• The proposed detection strategy achieved high accuracy and precision in
identifying malicious activities in 6LoWPAN networks.
• It is suggested that the approach can be used as a security measure in IoT
devices that use 6LoWPAN networks.
POSSIBLE APPLICATIONS
&
FUTURE WORK
POSSIBLE APLLICATION
 Due to low power consumption and ability to support IPv6, 6LoWPAN has various applications.
• Healthcare automation and logistics.
•
Automation of homes and buildings.
•
Monitoring personal health and fitness.
•
Industrial automation.
•
Real-time monitoring and prediction of the environment.
•
Automation of vehicles.
•
Management and logistics of assets.
FUTURE WORK
•
6LoWPAN is a promising protocol for low-power wireless networks in IoT.
•
The need for a standardized communication protocol for constrained devices will only
increase as the number of connected devices grows.
•
6LoWPAN supports IP-based communication, making it suitable for IoT.
•
Ongoing research is being conducted to improve and optimize the 6LoWPAN protocol.
•
Areas of focus for improvement include enhancing QoS parameters and developing routing
protocols for content-based routing.
•
Lightweight security protocols designed for constrained environments are a key
area of research.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
• 6LoWPAN is an important protocol that enables low-power wireless networks to connect
and communicate with the Internet.
• The protocol is perfect for Internet of Things applications because it can support IP-based
communication.
• The protocol has a number of benefits, including effective bandwidth utilization, support
for multiple wireless technologies, and a large number of device compatibility options.
• Yet there are also several difficulties that must be solved, including QoS, routing, and
security.
• These issues are being addressed by ongoing research and development, and 6LoWPAN
has a promising future.
REFERENCES
1. J. W. Hui and D. E. Culler, ”Extending IP to Low-Power, Wireless Personal Area Networks,” in
IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 37-45, Jul./Aug. 2008, doi:
10.1109/MIC.2008.68.
2. K. Kalaivani, M. Kavyashree, V. Kiran and V. Nagaraj, ”A Novel 6LowPan-IPv6 based Header
Compression Algorithm for enhancement of the QoS parameter,” 2018 3rd IEEE
International Conference on Recent Trends in Electronics, Information & Communication
Technology (RTEICT), Bangalore, India, 2018, pp. 2168-2172, doi:
10.1109/RTEICT42901.2018.9012122
3. M. D. Shirbhate and S. S. Solapure, ”Improving existing 6LoWPAN RPL for content-based
routing,” 2018 Second International Conference on Computing Methodologies and
Communication (ICCMC), Erode, India, 2018, pp. 632-635, doi:
10.1109/ICCMC.2018.8487866.
REFERENCES
4. R. Beniwal, K. Nikolova and G. Iliev, ”MM-SPEED: Multipath MultiSPEED Routing
Protocol in 6LoWPAN Networks,” 2018 Seventh Balkan Conference on Lighting
(BalkanLight), Varna, Bulgaria, 2018, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/BalkanLight.2018.8546963
5. A. J. Albarakati, J. Qayyum, and K. A. Fakeeh, ”A Survey on 6LowPAN its Future
Research Challenges,” IJCSMC, vol. 3, no. 10, pp. 558-570, Oct. 2014.
6. B. Mbarek, M. Ge and T. Pitner, ”Precisional Detection Strategy for 6LoWPAN
Networks in IoT,” 2022 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and
Cybernetics (SMC), Prague, Czech Republic, 2022, pp. 1006-1011, doi:
10.1109/SMC53654.2022.9945346