Demo Abstract: Augmenting Reality with IP-based Sensor Networks

We demonstrate low-power IP-based sensor networks by showing a system that interacts with the sensor network using a RESTful web service interface. The sensor data is displayed with overlaid 3D graphics on top of a live camera feed, so-called augmented reality. The augmented reality application is built with off-the-shelf components with no sensor network-specific code. The IP-based sensor network runs the Contiki operating system

A Low-Power CoAP for Contiki

Internet of Things devices will by and large be battery-operated, but existing application protocols have typically not been designed with power-efficiency in mind. In low-power wireless systems, power-efficiency is determined by the ability to maintain a low radio duty cycle: keeping the radio off as much as possible. We present an implementation of the IETF Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) for the Contiki operating system that leverages the ContikiMAC low-power duty cycling mechanism to provide power efficiency. We experimentally evaluate our low-power CoAP, demonstrating that an existing application layer protocol can be made power-efficient through a generic radio duty cycling mechanism. To the best of our knowledge, our CoAP implementation is the first to provide power-efficient operation through radio duty cycling. Our results question the need for specialized low-power mechanisms at the application layer, instead providing low-power operation only at the radio duty cycling layer

The ContikiMAC Radio Duty Cycling Protocol

Low-power wireless devices must keep their radio transceivers off as much as possible to reach a low power consumption, but must wake up often enough to be able to receive communication from their neighbors. This report describes the ContikiMAC radio duty cycling mechanism, the default radio duty cycling mechanism in Contiki 2.5, which uses a power efficient wake-up mechanism with a set of timing constraints to allow device to keep their transceivers off. With ContikiMAC, nodes can participate in network communication yet keep their radios turned off for roughly 99% of the time. This report describes the ContikiMAC mechanism, measures the energy consumption of individual ContikiMAC operations, and evaluates the efficiency of the fast sleep and phase-lock optimizations

Heterogeneous PLC-RF networking for LLNs

Session Posters & DemosInternational audienceDans le contexte de l' évolution de l'automatisation des maisons, des bâtiments et des villes, notre vision des futures infrastructures de communication place le réseau CPL comme le point central. Grâce à la convergence des couches réseau autour d'IPv6, nous montrons que l'intégration du CPL avec les réseaux de capteurs sans fil est possible même dans des dispositifs très contraints pour offrir une augmentation significative de leur durée de vie, de leur fiabilité et de leurs capacités de routage

Managed ecosystems of networked objects

Small embedded devices such as sensors and actuators will become the cornerstone of the Future Internet. To this end, generic, open and secure communication and service platforms are needed in order to be able to exploit the new business opportunities these devices bring. In this paper, we evaluate the current efforts to integrate sensors and actuators into the Internet and identify the limitations at the level of cooperation of these Internet-connected objects and the possible intelligence at the end points. As a solution, we propose the concept of Managed Ecosystem of Networked Objects, which aims to create a smart network architecture for groups of Internet-connected objects by combining network virtualization and clean-slate end-to-end protocol design. The concept maps to many real-life scenarios and should empower application developers to use sensor data in an easy and natural way. At the same time, the concept introduces many new challenging research problems, but their realization could offer a meaningful contribution to the realization of the Internet of Things

Stateless multicast forwarding with RPL in 6LowPAN sensor networks

Recent research efforts have resulted in efficient support for IPv6 in Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN), with the "IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low power and Lossy Networks" (RPL) being on the forefront as the state of the art routing approach. However, little attention has been paid to IPv6 multicast for networks of constrained devices. The "Multicast Forwarding Using Trickle" (Trickle Multicast) internet draft is one of the most noteworthy efforts, while RPL's specification also attempts to address the area but leaves many questions unanswered. In this paper we expose our concerns about the Trickle Multicast (TM) algorithm, backed up by thorough performance evaluation. We also introduce SMRF, an alternative multicast forwarding mechanism for RPL networks, which addresses TM's drawbacks. Simulation results demonstrate that SMRF achieves significant delay and energy efficiency improvements at the cost of a small increase in packet loss. We have extended the TCP/IP engine of the Contiki embedded Operating System to support both algorithms. Both implementations have been made available to the community. © 2012 IEEE

Connecting the World of Embedded Mobiles: The RIOT Approach to Ubiquitous Networking for the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly evolving based on low-power compliant protocol standards that extend the Internet into the embedded world. Pioneering implementations have proven it is feasible to inter-network very constrained devices, but had to rely on peculiar cross-layered designs and offer a minimalistic set of features. In the long run, however, professional use and massive deployment of IoT devices require full-featured, cleanly composed, and flexible network stacks. This paper introduces the networking architecture that turns RIOT into a powerful IoT system, to enable low-power wireless scenarios. RIOT networking offers (i) a modular architecture with generic interfaces for plugging in drivers, protocols, or entire stacks, (ii) support for multiple heterogeneous interfaces and stacks that can concurrently operate, and (iii) GNRC, its cleanly layered, recursively composed default network stack. We contribute an in-depth analysis of the communication performance and resource efficiency of RIOT, both on a micro-benchmarking level as well as by comparing IoT communication across different platforms. Our findings show that, though it is based on significantly different design trade-offs, the networking subsystem of RIOT achieves a performance equivalent to that of Contiki and TinyOS, the two operating systems which pioneered IoT software platforms

Experiences from porting the Contiki operating system to a popular hardware platform

In contrast to original belief, recent work has demonstrated the viability of IPv6-based Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). This has led to significant research and standardization efforts with outcomes such as the "IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks " (6LoWPAN) specification. The Contiki embedded operating system is an important open source, multi-platform effort to implement 6LoWPAN functionality for constrained devices. Alongside its RFC-compliant TCP/IP stack (uIP), it provides support for 6LoWPAN and many related standards. As part of our work, we have made considerable fixes and enhancements to one of Contiki's ports. In the process, we made significant optimizations and a thorough evaluation of Contiki's memory and code footprint characteristics, focusing on network-related functionality. In this paper we present our experiences from the porting process, we disclose our optimizations and demonstrate their significance. Lastly, we discuss a method of using Contiki to deploy an embedded Internet-to-6LoWPAN router. Our porting work has been made available to the community under the terms of the Contiki license