EWRPL: entropy-based weighted RPL

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a network of interconnected devices communicating through the internet. Routing is a crucial aspect of IoT for effective communication between devices since intermediate nodes collect and transmit sensor data for processing. IoT networks face limitations like poor connectivity, and devices are constrained in power, bandwidth, and memory. The Internet Engineering Task Force developed the Routing Protocol for Low power and lossy networks (RPL) to address these issues. In RPL, a Destination Oriented Directed Acyclic Graph (DODAG) is formed to start the data transfer. Rank is computed using routing metrics and an objective function during DODAG formation. The paper studies the approaches developed for rank calculation and proposes a new technique called the Entropy-based Weighted approach for RPL (EWRPL). The proposed approach combines the routing metrics and computes the rank for parent selection. In EWRPL, we have assigned weights to the routing metrics using the entropy method. The proposed approach considers four routing metrics-hop count, ETX, delay, and energy. The EWRPL approach was experimented with using the Cooja simulator and Contiki-OS. The study indicates that utilizing the EWRPL approach results in a higher Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), lower latency, and reduced control message overhead compared to the two standard objective functions and the state-of-the-art equal weight approach. The technique can be used in various domains, such as home automation, healthcare, and industrial usage. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024.