CQARPL: Congestion and QoS-aware RPL for IoT applications under heavy traffic

The Internet of Things (IoT) provides a common platform to connect the heterogeneous devices over the internet. Hence, the number of devices connected via the internet and consequently congestion is exponentially increased. Congestion reduces the network performance and negatively affects QoS. RPL (routing protocol for low-power and lossy networks) significantly has responded to IoT routing needs, but controlling congestion and QoS needs have been failed to be considered. Therefore, this paper improved the RPL protocol based on the congestion control and QoS requirements and proposed a protocol called Congestion and QoS-Aware RPL for IoT applications (CQARPL). This protocol selects parents based on multi-metric evaluation, considering the conditions of routes to the root. In addition, it somehow controls the parent selection and the children's acceptance that a balanced DODAG graph is formed. Furthermore, it provides the ability to predict congestion and prevents it from occurring as much as possible. The proposed protocol is implemented by the Cooja simulator and evaluated with different scenarios compared to CLRPL and RPL. The simulation results showed that CQARPL maintains the quality of transmissions and controls congestion in IoT.

Automated summary

The Internet of Things (IoT) has led to an exponential increase in the number of devices connected to the internet, resulting in congestion and negatively affecting Quality of Service (QoS). This paper proposes an improved RPL protocol called Congestion and QoS-Aware RPL for IoT applications (CQARPL) which addresses congestion control and QoS requirements. The protocol selects parents based on multi-metric evaluation and controls node connectivity to achieve congestion control and QoS. Simulation results show that CQARPL maintains transmission quality and controls congestion effectively in IoT.