ABSTRACT

This chapter describes Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN)-an adaption protocol-which brings IPv6 protocol to wireless sensor networks (WSNs) using IEEE 802.15.4 communication standard. With 6LoWPAN, various challenges have been solved to integrate applications that used to rely on proprietary protocols into the global digital village. The chapter explains basic principles and features of Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP), an emerging application protocol initially based on 6LoWPAN. The goal of the 6LoWPAN working group was to develop a standard that allows IPv6-based communication over IEEE 802.15.4. CoAP provides caching and proxy features that are similar to HTTP to ensure the required scalability in large-scale networking environments. 6LoWPAN ensures applicability of IPv6 to low-power, low-rate wireless radio communication based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. It provides protocols for IP header compression, address auto-configuration, adoption layer to fit IPv6-specific MTU requirements and so on.