Reactive Discovery of Point-to-Point Routes in Low Power and Lossy Networks

Reactive Discovery of Point-to-Point Routes in Low Power and Lossy Networks University of Wisconsin Milwaukee INRIA Point to point (P2P) communication between arbitrary IPv6 routers and hosts in a Low power and Lossy Network (LLN) is a key requirement for many applications. RPL, the IPv6 Routing Protocol for LLNs, constrains the LLN topology to a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) and requires the P2P routing to take place along the DAG links. Such P2P routes may be significantly suboptimal and may lead to traffic congestion near the DAG root. This document describes a P2P route discovery mechanism complementary to RPL base functionality. This mechanism allows an RPL-aware IPv6 router or host to discover and establish on demand one or more routes to another RPL-aware IPv6 router or host in the LLN such that the discovered routes meet the specified cost criteria.