TCP over 6LoWPAN for Industrial Applications: An Experimental Study

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) was considered unsuitable for Low power and Lossy Networks (LLNs) due to the characteristics LLN devices (low computing power, strong energy constraint, etc.) and to the absence of IP layer on the network layer. Recently, the IPv6 over Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPANs) has been introduced as an adaptation layer for IPv6 over LLNs. Thanks to the 6LoWPAN layer and uIP (micro IP) protocol stack, TCP becomes more and more viable for LLNs. Moreover, TCP provides a reliable communication scheme between new small industrial devices. In this paper, we show an experimental performance of TCP over multi-hop 6LowPANs in our testbed.