A Comparative Performance Evaluation of A load-balancing Algorithm using Contiki: “RPL vs QU-RPL”

Abstract

The RPL (Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks) has emerged within constrained networks as the de-facto IPv6 routing standard, which entangles many concepts that make it a complex, albeit a rather flexible protocol.However, load balancing has been underemphasized, making it an essential and practical issue of RPL, given the resource-constrained nature of a low-powered and lossy network (LLN). In this paper, we aim at determining whether a suggested load-balancing schemenamed QU-RPL (Queue utilization based RPL)can be considered as a viable solution to the significant loadbalancing problem in the standardised RPL under some specific conditions. Hence, our results show that QU-RPL does not provide significant improvements over RPL under the simulated environment, and there is still a further need for the development of a more efficient load-balancing mechanism.