What is 6LoWPAN protocol?

6LoWPAN stands for IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks.

It is a protocol defined between Network layer and Data Link layer.

It is defined by the IETF standards RFC 4919, 4944, draft-ietf06lowpan-hc and -nd, -draft-ietf-roll-rpl.

Main features

• Efficient Header compression — IPV6 base and extension headers, UDP header
• Enables a standard socket API
• Minimal use of code and memory
• Direct end-to-end internet integration
• Multiple toplogy options
• Support for e.g 64 bit and 16 bit 802.15.4 addressing
• Network auto configuration using neighbor discovery
• Unicast, multicast and broadcast support — Multicast is compressed and mapped to broadcast
• Fragmentation — 1280 byte IPv6 MTU -> 127 byte 802.15.4 frames
• Support for IP routing (e.g IETF RPL)
• Support for use of link-layer mesh (e.g 802.15.5)

Fig 1. 6LoWPAN stack example

6LoWPAN Architecture

LoWPANs are stub networks

1. Simple LoWPAN — Single edge router
2. Extended LoWPAN — Multiple edge routers with common backbone link
3. Ad-hoc LoWPAN-No route outside the LoWPAN