IPv6 over Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

This paper proposes the use of IPv6 over the newly emerging WSN(Wireless Sensor Networks). The advancement in the integration between large number of small embedded system processors, micro sensors and wireless interfaces based on MEMS(Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) have led to the emergence of ‘WSN’. The range of application areas of WSN are increasing day by day. Some applications might place the requirement of connecting the sensor nodes to Internet, which will help the sensor nodes to be accessed from anywhere around the world. This requirement led to the idea of using the basic IP technology for the same . But, IPv4 protocol is already on a verge of saturation and has the limitation of very small address space which can be a bottleneck in our aim of this topic, Therefore, we can directly shift our focus towards the future of IP technology- Pv6 protocol as it provides a huge address space and features like autoconfiguration which will help in configuring the large numbers of sensor nodes automatically without any naming constraints. For implementing the same we have to take into consideration the basic standard for WSNs-IEEE 802. 15. 4 as our aim to carry out the IPv6 packets transmission over IEEE 802. 15. 4. There are a number of differences and incompatibilities between the two networks. So using 6LoWPAN we can tackle these differences using different methodologies as supported by 6LoWPAN. Lastly we also have put light on some other design issues like memory management and security related to actually implementing ‘IPv6 over WSN’.