Disjoint multipath RPL for QoE/QoS provision in the Internet of Multimedia Things

RPL is the IETF standardized IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-power and lossy networks (LLNs). The major effort is therefore made on handling low data rate traffic. Meanwhile, the Internet of Multimedia Things emerged as one hot topic of the Internet of Things. In LLNs, providing a descent quality of service (QoS) along with a user quality of experience (QoE) for multimedia applications is challenging. High bandwidth and significant computation capabilities are necessary while LLNs are very resource constrained. To raise the available bandwidth to accommodate high data rate applications, we propose to simultaneously transmit a flow on multiple disjoint paths. To do so, we exploit the DODAG structure, already maintained by RPL, to build disjoint paths without incurring extra overhead. To reduce the amount of data to send while considering the low computation resources of video sensors, we propose to apply a priority-based low-complexity encoding scheme on the captured pictures. Highest priority data can be replicated on more than one path. Our conducted experiments using simulations as well as a real testbed show that the best QoS and QoE are obtained when multiple paths are used along with the replication of highest priority data packets.

Automated summary

RPL is a standardized IPv6 routing protocol designed for low-power and lossy networks (LLNs). It focuses on handling low data rate traffic and faces challenges in providing good quality of service and user quality of experience for multimedia applications in resource-constrained LLNs. To address this, the proposal suggests transmitting traffic on multiple disjoint paths using the DODAG structure maintained by RPL, and applying a priority-based low-complexity encoding scheme to reduce the data to send. Experimental results show that the best QoS and QoE are achieved when using multiple paths and replicating highest priority data packets.