6LoWPAN Working Group                                             E. Kim
Internet-Draft                                                      ETRI
Expires: May 17, 2008                                     N. Chevrollier
                                                                     TNO
                                                               D. Kaspar
                                                                    ETRI
                                                             JP. Vasseur
                                                      Cisco Systems, Inc
                                                       November 14, 2007


               Design and Application Spaces for 6LoWPANs
                    draft-ekim-6lowpan-scenarios-01

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   Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).









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Abstract

   This document investigates potential application scenarios and use
   cases for low-power wireless personal area networks (LoWPANs).


Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Design Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   3.  Application Scenarios  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     3.1.  Industrial Monitoring  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     3.2.  Structural Monitoring  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     3.3.  Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     3.4.  Connected Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     3.5.  Vehicle Telematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     3.6.  Agricultural Monitoring  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   4.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
   5.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   6.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
   Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 22





























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1.  Introduction

   LoWPANs are inexpensive, low-performance, wireless communication
   networks, and are formed by devices complying with the IEEE 802.15.4
   standard [1].  Their typical characteristics can be summarized as
   follows:

   o  Low power: depending on country regulations and used frequency
      band, the maximum transmit power levels can be up to 1000 mW [1].
      However, typical wireless radios for LoWPANs are battery-operated
      and consume between 10 mW and 20 mW [2].

   o  Short range: The Personal Operating Space (POS) defined by IEEE
      802.15.4 implies a range of 10 meters.  For real implementations,
      the range of LoWPAN radios is typically measured in tens of
      meters, but can go far beyond that in non line-of-sight situations
      [2].

   o  Low bit rate: the IEEE 802.15.4 standard defines a maximum over-
      the-air rate of 250 kb/s, as well as lower data rates of 40 kb/s
      and 20 kb/s for each of the currently defined physical layers (2.4
      GHz, 915 MHz and 868 MHz, respectively).

   o  Small memory capacity: common RAM sizes for LoWPAN devices consist
      of a few kilobytes, such as 4 KB.

   o  Limited processing capability: current LoWPAN nodes usually have
      8-bit processors with clock rates around 10 MHz.

   The IEEE 802.15.4 standard distinguishes between two types of nodes,
   reduced-function devices (RFDs) and full-function devices (FFDs).
   Through their inability to transmit MAC layer beacons, RFDs can only
   communicate with FFDs in a resulting "master/slave" star topology.
   FFDs are able to communicate with peer FFDs and with RFDs in the
   aforementioned relation.  FFDs can therefore assume arbitrary network
   topologies, such as multi-hop meshes.

   LoWPANs do not necessarily comprise of sensor nodes only, but may
   also consist of actuators.  For instance, in an agricultural
   environment, sensor nodes might detect low soil humidity and then
   send commands to activate the sprinkler system.

   A LoWPAN network can be seen as a network of small star-networks,
   each consisting of a single FFD connected to zero or more RFDs.  The
   FFDs themselves act as packet forwarders or routers and connect the
   entire LoWPAN in a multi-hop fashion.  A LoWPAN domain is defined by
   the number of devices controlled by the LoWPAN coordinator.  Each
   LoWPAN has a single coordinator, which must be of FFD type and it is



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   responsible for address allocation.  One can note that a LoWPAN
   coordinator is responsible for a single LoWPAN.


                   O     X
                   |     |
                   O --- O --- X        O: FFD
                  / \     \             X: RFD
                 X   X     X

                         Figure 1: A simple LoWPAN

   Furthermore, communication to corresponding nodes outside of the
   LoWPAN is becoming increasingly important.  The distinction between
   RFDs and FFDs and the introduction of additional functional elements,
   such as gateways or border routers, increase the complexity on how
   basic network functionality (e.g., routing and mobility) can be
   designed for LoWPANs.

   After describing the characteristics of a LoWPAN, this draft provides
   a list of use cases and market domains that may benefit and motivate
   the work currently done in the 6LoWPAN WG.





























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2.  Design Space

   From [3], this section describes the potential dimensions that could
   be used to describe the design space of wireless sensor networks in
   the context of the 6LoWPAN WG.  Note that the design space is already
   limited by the characteristics of a 6LoWPAN (e.g., low-power, short
   range, low-bit rate) as described in [4].  The possible dimensions
   for scenario categorization used in this draft are described as
   follows:

   o  Deployment: In a LoWPAN, sensor nodes can be scattered randomly or
      deployed in an organized manner.  The deployment can occur at
      once, or as an iterative process.  The selected type of deployment
      has an impact on node density and location.  This feature affects
      how to organize - manually or automatically - the sensor network,
      and how to allocate addresses in the network.

   o  Mobility: Inherent to the wireless characteristics of LoWPANs,
      sensor nodes could move or be moved around.  Mobility can be an
      induced factor (e.g., sensors in an automobile), hence not
      predictable, or a controlled characteristic (e.g., pre-planned
      movement in a supply chain).

   o  Network Size: The network size takes into account nodes that
      provide the intended network capability (i.e., FFD).  The number
      of nodes involved in a LoWPAN could be small (10 nodes), moderate
      (several 100s), or large (over a 1000).

   o  Power Source: Whether the sensor nodes are battery-powered or
      mains-powered influence the network design.  A hybrid solution is
      also possible where only part of the network (e.g., FFDs) is
      mains-powered.

   o  Security Level: sensor networks may carry sensitive information
      and require high-level of security support where the availability,
      integrity, and confidentiality of the information are primordial.
      This high level of security may be needed in case of structural
      monitoring of key infrastructures or heath monitoring of patients.

   o  Routing: The routing factor highlights the number of hops that has
      to be traversed to reach the edge of the network or a destination
      node within it.  A single hop may be needed for simple star-
      topologies or a multi-hop communication scheme for more elaborate
      topologies, such as meshes or trees.  From previous work on
      LoWPANs from academia and industry, various routing mechanisms
      have been introduced, such as data-centric, event-driven, address-
      centric, localization-based, or geographical routing.  We do not
      use such a fine granularity in our draft but rather use topologies



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      and single/multi-hop communication when referring to the routing
      categorization.

   o  Connectivity: Nodes within a LoWPAN are considered "always
      connected" when there is a network connection between any two
      given nodes.  However, due to external factors (e.g., extreme
      environment, mobility) or programmed disconnections (e.g.,
      sleeping mode), the network connectivity can be "intermittent"
      (i.e., regular disconnection) to "sporadic" (i.e., almost always
      disconnected network).

   o  Quality of Service (QoS): for mission-critical applications,
      support of QoS is mandatory in resource-constrained LoWPAN.

   o  Traffic Pattern: several traffic partners may be used in sensor
      networks.  To name a few, Point-to-Multi-Point(P2MP), Multi-Point-
      to-Point (MP2P) and Point-to-Point (P2P).


































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3.  Application Scenarios

   This section lists a fundamental set of LoWPAN application scenarios
   in terms of system design.  A complete list of practical use cases is
   not the goal of this draft.  The intention is to define a minimal set
   of LoWPAN configurations to which any other scenario can be
   abstracted to.  Also, the characteristics of the scenarios described
   in this section do not reflect the characteristics that every LoWPAN
   must have in a particular environment (e.g., healthcare).

3.1.  Industrial Monitoring

   Sensor network applications for industrial monitoring can be
   associated with a broad range of methods to increase productivity,
   energy efficiency, and safety of industrial operations in engineering
   facilities and manufacturing plants.  Many companies currently use
   time-consuming and expensive manual monitoring to predict failures
   and schedule maintenance or replacement to avoid costly manufacturing
   downtime.  Deploying wireless sensor networks, which can be installed
   inexpensively and provide more frequent and more reliable data, can
   reduce equipment downtime and eliminate costly manual equipment
   monitoring.  Additionally, data analysis can be pushed into the
   network, eliminating the need for manual data transfer and analysis.

   Industrial monitoring can be largely split into following application
   fields:

   o  Process Monitoring and Control: combining advanced energy metering
      and sub-metering technologies with wireless sensor networking in
      order to optimize factory operations, reduce peak demand, and
      ultimately lower costs for energy.

   o  Machine Surveillance: ensuring product quality and efficient and
      safe equipment operation.  Critical equipment parameters such as
      vibration, temperature, and electrical signature are analyzed for
      abnormalities that are suggestive of impending equipment failure
      (see Section 3.2).

   o  Supply Chain Management and Asset Tracking: with the retail
      industry being legally responsible for the quality of sold goods,
      early detection of inadequate storage conditions with respect to
      temperature will reduce risk and cost to remove products from the
      sales channel.  Examples include container shipping, product
      identification, cargo monitoring, distribution and logistics.

   o  Storage Monitoring: sensory systems designed to prevent releases
      of regulated substances to ground water, surface water and soil.
      This application field may also include theft/tampering prevention



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      systems for storage facilities or other infrastructure, such as
      pipelines.

   Example 1: Process Monitoring and Control

   Manufacturing plants and engineering facilities, such as product
   assembly lines and engine rooms, can be drastically optimized using
   wireless sensor technology in order to ensure product quality,
   control energy consumption, avoid machine downtimes, and increase
   operation safety.  In industrial settings, sensors such as vibration
   detectors can be used to continuously monitor equipment and predict
   equipment failure and to detect the need for maintenance, with far
   greater precision.  This allows companies to avoid costly equipment
   failures or shutdowns of production lines and therefore increase
   their productivity.

   Greater access to process parameters gives engineers better
   visibility and ultimately better decision making power.  Various
   sensor measurements, such as gas pressure, the flow of liquids and
   gases, room temperature and humidity, or tank charging levels may be
   used together with controllers and actuators to improve a plant's
   productivity in a continuous self-controlling loop, in which
   instruments can be upgraded, calibrated, and reconfigured as needed
   via the wireless channel.

   A plant's monitoring boundary often does not cover the entire
   facility but only those areas considered critical to the process.
   Easy to install wireless connectivity extends this line to include
   peripheral areas and process measurements that were previously
   infeasible or impractical to reach with wired connections.

   Example 2: Supply Chain Management and Asset Tracking

   Global supply chain and transportation applications increasingly
   require real-time sensor and location information about their
   supplies and assets.  Wireless sensor networks meet these
   requirements efficiently with low installation and management costs,
   providing benefits such as reduced inventory, increased asset
   utilization, and precise location tracking of containers, goods, and
   mobile equipment.  Clients can be provided with an early warning of
   possible chain ruptures, for example by using call centers or
   conveniently accessing comprehensive on-line reports and data
   management systems.  Such reports could include monitoring of current
   states, the history of goods with critical conservation conditions,
   and in critical areas the monitoring status of oil containers, or
   verification of chemical gas substance concentration.

   For instance, thousands of cargo ships loaded with millions of



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   containers are sailing the oceans today.  However, supply and demand
   are not equally distributed around the world, which results in high
   costs for shipping empty containers.  Sophisticated IT systems try to
   circumnavigate this problem and precision planning is critical in any
   case: the customer always expects containers to arrive just in time.
   Wireless sensor networks have a great potential of making this
   growing market even more efficient by allowing more reliable tracking
   and identification of containers, and cargo monitoring for hazardous
   freight detection or identification of illegal shipment.

   Also, the process of loading and unloading can be implemented more
   efficiently.  For example, after a crane operator has lifted a
   container from the deck, its content is identified and taken to the
   corresponding warehouse -- on a driverless truck whose movements are
   controlled within centimeters by transponders under the asphalt.

   Dominant parameters in industrial monitoring scenarios:

   o  Deployment: pre-planned, manually attached

   o  Mobility: no (except for the asset tracking case)

   o  Network Size: medium to large size, high node density

   o  Power Source: all battery-operated

   o  Security Level: high

   o  Routing: multi-hop, highly event-driven

   o  Connectivity: always on for crucial processes, otherwise
      intermitted

   o  QoS: important

   o  Traffic Pattern: P2P (actuator control), MP2P (data collection)

3.2.  Structural Monitoring

   Intelligent monitoring in facility management can make safety checks
   and periodic monitoring of the architecture status highly efficient.
   Mains powered nodes can be included in the design phase of a
   construction or battery-equipped nodes can be added afterwards.

   Example: A 1000m long bridge with 10 pillars.  Each pillar contains 5
   sensors to measure the water level, and 5 vibration sensors to
   monitor its structural health.  On the top part of each pillar, an
   "infrastructure" FFD sink node is placed to collect the sensor data.



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   The FFD is the LoWPAN coordinator of the sensors for each pillar
   which can be FFD or RFD.  All nodes are static, and manually
   configured with a single-hop connection to the coordinator.  All
   sensor nodes do not move while the service is provided.  The network
   configuration and routing table are changed only in case of node
   failure.  Except from the pillar itself, there are no special
   obstacles of attenuation to the sensor signals, but careful
   configuration is needed to prevent signal interference between
   sensors.

   A logical entity of data gathering can lie with each LoWPAN
   coordinator.  Communication schedules must be set up between leaf
   nodes and their LoWPAN coordinator, to efficiently gather the
   different types of sensed data.  Each data packet may include meta-
   information about its data, or the type of sensors could be encoded
   in its address during the address allocation.  This type of
   application works based on event-driven notifications.  The data over
   or under a pre-defined threshold is meaningful to report.  The event-
   driven data sensed on abnormal occurrences is time-critical and
   required secure and reliable transmission.  For energy saving, all
   sensors could have periodic and long sleep modes but wake up on
   certain events.

   The LoWPAN coordinators can play the role of a gateway, so that a
   third party with internet access can check the status of the specific
   pillar.  Due to the contents of the data, only authenticated users
   should be allowed to access the data.

   This use case can be extended to a medium size sensor network to
   monitor a building for instance.  They still have similar
   characteristics such as static nodes, manually deployed networks, and
   mostly star (or multi-level of star) topology, and event-driven real-
   time data gathering.

   Dominant parameters in structural monitoring applications:

   o  Deployment: static, organized, pre-planned

   o  Mobility: none

   o  Network Size: small to medium size (dozens to hundreds of nodes),
      low density

   o  Power Source: mostly battery powered (except LoWPAN coordinators)

   o  Security Level: high (safety-critical), authentication required





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   o  Routing: star-topology (potentially hierarchical)

   o  Connectivity: always connected (periodic/intermittent beacon mode)

   o  QoS: medium to high

   o  Traffic Pattern: MP2P (data collection), P2P (localized querying)


                            X  X  X
                             \ | /
                         X --- O --- X
                             / | \        O: LoWPAN coordinator (FFD)
                            X  X  X       X: FFD or RFD

              Figure 2: A LoWPAN with a simple star topology.

3.3.  Healthcare

   LoWPANs are envisioned to be heavily used in healthcare environments.
   They would ease the deployment of new services by getting rid of
   cumbersome wires and ease the patient care and life in hospitals and
   for home care.  In this environment, delay or lost information may be
   a matter of life or death.

   Example 1: a small number (e.g., less than 10) of sensors are
   deployed on a patient body for medical surveillance.  They monitor
   vital signs such as heart beats (electrocardiogram-ECG) or blood
   pressure, and provide localization information.  The patient is able
   to move in his room or within the hospital.  The collected data is
   sent to sinks placed onto hospital's walls.  Sinks in the hospital's
   walls are mains powered.  Devices carried by the patient run on
   battery.  Localization-based services are provided in this scenario.
   Furthermore, the stringent requirements of medical applications imply
   highly reliable communications over a robust network.

   Example 2: Healthcare at home and tele-assistance.  Various systems
   ranging from a simple wearable remote controls for tele-assistance or
   intermediate systems with wearable sensors monitoring various metrics
   to more complex systems studying life dynamics can be supported by
   the LoWPAN.  In this latter category, a large amount of data from
   various sensors can be collected: movement pattern observation, check
   that medicines have been taken, objects tracking and so on.  A
   example of such deployment is described in [6] using the concept of
   Personal Networks.

   Dominant parameters in healthcare applications:




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   o  Deployment: pre-planned

   o  Mobility: moderate (patient's mobility)

   o  Network Size: small

   o  Power Source: hybrid

   o  Security Level: Encryption is required

   o  Routing: multihop, star topology on patients body

   o  Connectivity: always on

   o  QoS: high level of support (life and death implication)

   o  Traffic Pattern: MP2P/P2MP (data collection), P2P (local
      diagnostic)


             +-------+
             | Sinks | (in hospital walls)
             +-------+
                 |
           +-----------+
           |     O     | (on patient's body)
           |    /|\    |
           |   X X X   |     O: FFD
           +-----------+     X: RFD (could be replaced with FFDs)

                  Figure 4: A mobile star-shaped LoWPAN.

3.4.  Connected Home

   The "Connected" Home or "Smart" home is with no doubt an area where
   LoWPANs can be used to support an increasing number of services:

   o  Home safety/security

   o  Home Automation and Control

   o  Healthcare (see above section)

   o  Smart appliances

   The LoWPAN network typically comprises a few dozen and probably in a
   near future a few hundreds of nodes of various nature: sensors,
   actuators and objects.



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   Example:

   In terms of home safety and security, the LoWPAN is made of motion,
   audio, door/window sensors, video cameras to which additional sensors
   can be added for security (gas, water, CO, Radon, smoke detection).
   The LoWPAN typically comprises a few dozen of nodes forming a ad-hoc
   network with multi-hop routing since the nodes may not be in direct
   range.  In its most simple form all nodes are static and communicate
   with a central control module but more sophisticated scenarios may
   also involve inter-device communication.  For example, a motion/
   presence sensor may send a multicast message to a group of lights to
   be switched on, a video camera will be activated sending a video
   stream to a gateway that can be received on a cell phone.

   The Home automation and control system LoWPAN offers a wide range of
   services: local or remote access from the Internet (via a secured
   gateway) to monitor the home (temperature, humidity, activation of
   remote video surveillance, status of the doors (locked),...) but also
   for home control (activate the air conditioning/heating, door locks,
   sprinkler systems, ...).  Fairly sophisticated systems can also
   optimize the level of energy consumption thanks to a wide range of
   input from various sensors connected to the LoWPAN: light sensors,
   presence detection, temperature, ... in order to control electric
   window shades, chillers, air flow control, air conditioning and
   heating with the objective to optimize energy consumption.

   Ergonomics in Connected Home is key and the LoWPAN must be self-
   managed and easy to install.  Traffic patterns may greatly vary
   depending on the applicability and so does the level of reliability
   and QoS expected from the LoWPAN.  Humidity sensing is typically not
   critical and requires no immediate action whereas tele-assistance or
   gas leak detection is critical and requires a high degree of
   reliability.  Furthermore, although some actions may not involve
   critical data, still the response time and network delays must be on
   the order of a few hundreds of milliseconds to preserve the user
   experience (e.g. use a remote control to switch a light on).  A
   minority of nodes are mobile (with slow motion).  Connected Home
   LowPAN usually do not require multi-topology or QoS routing and
   fairly simple QoS mechanisms must be supported by the LoWPAN (the
   number of Class of Services is usually limited).

   Dominant parameters for home automation applications:

   o  Deployment: multi-hop topologies

   o  Mobility: small degree of mobility





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   o  Network Size: medium number of nodes, potentially high density

   o  Power Source: mix of battery and AC powered devices

   o  Security Level: authentication and encryption required

   o  Routing: no requirement for multi-topology or QoS routing

   o  Connectivity: intermittent (usage-dependent sleep modes)

   o  QoS: support of limited QoS (small number of Class of Service)

   o  Traffic Pattern: P2P (inter-device), P2MP and MP2P (polling)

3.5.  Vehicle Telematics

   LoWPANs play an important role in intelligent transportation systems.
   Incorporated in roads or/and, they contribute to the improvement of
   safety of transporting systems.  Through traffic or air-quality
   monitoring, they increase the possibilities in terms of traffic flow
   optimization and help reducing road congestion.

   Example: Scattered sensors are included in roads during their
   construction for motion monitoring.  When a car passes on top of
   these sensors, the possibility is then given to track the trajectory
   and velocity of the car for safety purpose.  The lifetime of sensors
   devices incorporated into roads is expected to be as long as the life
   time of the roads (10 years).  Multihop communication is possible
   between sensors, and the network should be able to cope with the
   deterioration over time of the node density due to power failure.
   Sinks place at the road side are mains powered, sensor nodes in the
   roads run on battery.  Power savings schemes might disconnect
   intermittently sensors nodes.  A rough estimate of 4 sensors per
   square meter is needed.  Other applications may involved car-to-car
   communications.

   Dominant parameters in vehicle telematics applications:

   o  Deployment: Scattered, pre-planned

   o  Mobility: High

   o  Network Size: large

   o  Power Source: Mostly battery powered

   o  Security Level: low




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   o  Routing: Multi-hop

   o  Connectivity: Intermittent

   o  QoS: support of limited QoS

   o  Traffic Pattern: mostly Multi-Point-to-Point (MP2P)


           +-------+
           | Sinks | (at the road side)
           +-------+
        -------|------------------------------
               |
         O --- O --- O ----- O   +---|---+
              /       \      |   | X-O-X | (cars)
             O         O --- O   +---|---+          O: FFD
                                                    X: RFD
        --------------------------------------

       Figure 5: Multi-hop LoWPAN combined with mobile star LoWPAN.

3.6.  Agricultural Monitoring

   Accurate temporal and spatial monitoring can significantly increase
   agricultural productivity.  Due to natural limitations, such as a
   farmers' inability to check the crop at all times of day or
   inadequate measurement tools, luck often plays a too large role in
   the success of harvests.  Using a network of strategically placed
   sensors, indicators such as temperature, humidity, soil condition,
   can be automatically monitored without labor intensive field
   measurements.  For example, sensor networks could provide precise
   information about crops in real time, enabling businesses to reduce
   water, energy, and pesticide usage and enhancing environment
   protection.

   Example: In a vineyard with medium to large geographical size, a
   number of 50 to 100 FFDs nodes are manually deployed in order to
   provide full signal coverage over the study area.  These FFD nodes
   support a multi-hop routing scheme to enable data forwarding to a
   sink node at the edge of the vineyard.  An additional number of 100
   to 1000 (possibly different) specialized RFD sensors (i.e., humidity,
   temperature, soil condition, sunlight) are attached to the FFDs in
   local wireless star topologies, periodically reporting measurements
   to the associated master FFD.  For example, in a 20-acres vineyard, 8
   parcels of land with each 10 sensors to provide readings on
   temperature and soil moisture.  Each of the 8 parcels contains 1 FFD
   sink to collect the sensor data. 10 intermediate FFD "routers" are



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   used to connect the sinks to the main gateway.

   Sensor nodes may send event-driven notifications when readings exceed
   certain thresholds, such as low soil humidity; which may
   automatically trigger a water sprinkler in the local environment.
   For increased energy efficiency, all sensors are in periodic sleep
   state.  However, FDD nodes need to be aware of sudden events from
   RFDs.  Their sleep periods should therefore be set to shorter
   intervals.  Communication schedules must be set up between RFDs and
   FFDs and global time synchronization is needed to account for clock
   drift.

   Sensor localization is important for geographical routing, for
   pinning down where an event occurred, and for combining gathered data
   with their actual position.  Using manual deployment, device
   addresses can be used.  For randomly deployed nodes, a localization
   algorithm needs to be applied.

   There might be various types of sensor devices deployed in a single
   WPAN, each providing raw data with different semantics.  Thus, an
   additional method is required to correctly interpret sensor readings.
   Each data packet may include meta-information about its data, or a
   type of a sensor could be encoded in its address during address
   allocation.

   Dominant parameters in agricultural monitoring:

   o  Deployment: randomly scattered with pre-planned coordinators

   o  Mobility: all static

   o  Network Size: medium to large, low to medium density

   o  Power Source: all nodes are battery-powered, except sink

   o  Security Level: high (business-critical)

   o  Routing: mesh topology with local star connections

   o  Connectivity: intermittent (many sleeping nodes)

   o  QoS: no

   o  Traffic Pattern: MP2P/P2MP and P2P







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                        X X X  X X X  X X X  X X X
         +---------+     \|/    \|/    \|/    \|/
         | Gateway | ---- O ---- O ---- O ---- O
         +---------+     /|\    /|\    /|\    /|\     X: RFD
                        X X X  X X X  X X X  X X X    O: FFD

                  Figure 3: An aligned multi-hop LoWPAN.












































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4.  Security Considerations

   TBD.
















































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5.  Acknowledgements

   Thanks to David Cypher for giving more insight on the IEEE 802.15.4
   standard and to Irene Fernandez for her review and valuable comments.















































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6.  References

   [1]  IEEE Computer Society, "IEEE Std. 802.15.4-2003", October 2003.

   [2]  Bulusu, N. and S. Jha, "Wireless Sensor Networks", July 2005.

   [3]  Roemer, K. and F. Mattern, "The Design Space of Wireless Sensor
        Networks", December 2004.

   [4]  Kushalnagar, N., Montenegro, G., and C. Schumacher, "6LoWPAN:
        Overview, Assumptions, Problem Statement and Goals,
        draft-ietf-6LoWPAN-problem-08 (work in progress)",
        February 2007.

   [5]  Culler, D. and J. Hui, "6lowPAN Tutorial: IP on IEEE 802.15.4
        Low Power Wireless Networks", May 2007.

   [6]  den Hartog, F., Schmidt, J., and A. de Vries, "On the potential
        of personal networks for hospitals", May 2006.
































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Authors' Addresses

   Eunsook Kim
   ETRI
   161 Gajeong-dong
   Yuseong-gu
   Daejeon  305-700
   Korea

   Phone: +82-42-860-6124
   Email: eunah.ietf@gmail.com


   Nicolas G. Chevrollier
   TNO
   Brassersplein 2
   P.O. Box 5050
   Delft  2600
   The Netherlands

   Phone: +31-15-285-7354
   Email: nicolas.chevrollier@tno.nl


   Dominik Kaspar
   ETRI
   161 Gajeong-dong
   Yuseong-gu
   Daejeon  305-700
   Korea

   Phone: +82-42-860-1072
   Email: dokaspar.ietf@gmail.com


   JP Vasseur
   Cisco Systems, Inc
   1414 Massachusetts Avenue
   Boxborough  MA 01719
   USA

   Phone:
   Email: jpv@cisco.com








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