Routing Protocols for Low Power and Lossy Networks in IoT Applications

Routing in Internet of Things (IoT) deployments confronts the dual constraints of severely limited node resources and highly variable link reliability. Low Power and Lossy Networks (LLNs) encompass a broad spectrum of sensor and actuator networks in smart cities, environmental monitoring, industrial automation and precision agriculture. The prevailing standard, the IPv6 Routing Protocol for LLNs (RPL), builds a tree‐like structure known as a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) rooted at a data collection sink. RPL’s proactive, topology‐driven approach leverages Objective Functions (OFs) to select parent nodes according to metrics such as hop count, Expected Transmission Count (ETX) or remaining energy. While this design ensures low control overhead and predictable behaviour, real‐world deployments surface challenges: dynamic link quality, node mobility, heterogeneous traffic patterns, congestion hotspots and scalability limits. In response, researchers have pursued enhancements through composite metrics, multipath extensions, congestion‐aware decision mechanisms and mobility support. Advances in lightweight routing frameworks further seek to minimise path loss and computational burden at network edges, enabling resilient multi‐hop communication in emerging 5G/6G‐supported IoT scenarios. Collectively, these developments aim to balance energy efficiency, reliability, latency and network lifetime, ensuring that LLN routing remains fit for the expanding horizon of IoT applications.

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Routing Protocols for Low Power and Lossy Networks in IoT Applications publication trend

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Technical terms

Low-Power and Lossy Network (LLN): A network composed of constrained devices with limited energy and processing capacity, connected by links with high loss rates and variable quality.

Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL): The IETF‐standardised IPv6 routing protocol for LLNs, which builds a DAG structure to route packets between nodes and a root based on defined Objective Functions.

Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG): A loop-free, hierarchical graph structure used by RPL in which each node selects one or more parent nodes to forward data toward the root.

Expected Transmission Count (ETX): A link-quality metric estimating the number of transmissions required, including retransmissions, for successful packet delivery over a wireless link.

Objective Function (OF): A configurable component in RPL that defines how nodes rank and select preferred parents based on one or more routing metrics (for example, hop count or composite metrics).

References

1. Lightweight multi-hop routing protocol for resource optimisation in edge computing networks. Internet of Things (2023).
2. Routing Protocols for Low Power and Lossy Networks in Internet of Things Applications. Sensors (2019).
3. Routing protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks for heterogeneous traffic network. EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking (2020).
4. Impacts of Mobility Models on RPL-Based Mobile IoT Infrastructures: An Evaluative Comparison and Survey. IEEE Access (2020).