Towards Multi-instances QoS Efficient RPL for Smart Grids

International audienceThe Internet of Thing is an ongoing revolution which promises to interconnect most of our world with billions of connected devices. Hence, data routing and prioritization in IoT is a main challenge in this gigantic network. This is all the more true for the Smart Grids data management where heterogeneous applications and signalling messages have different requirements in terms of reliability, latency and priority. So far, standards on Smart Grid have recommended the use of RPL (Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy networks) protocol for distributing commands over the grid. RPL assures Quality of Service (QoS) at the network layer in wireless sensor networks through the logical subdivision of the network in multiple instances, each one relying on a specific Objective Function. However, RPL is not optimized for Smart Grids, as its main objective function and its associated metric does not allow for QoS differentiation. In order to overcome this, we propose OFQS an objective function with a multi-objective metric that considers the delay and the remaining energy in the battery nodes alongside with the quality of the links. Our function automatically adapts to the number of instances (traffic classes) providing a QoS differentiation based on the different Smart Grid applications requirements. Simulations show that our proposal provides a low packet delivery latency and a higher packet delivery ratio while extending the lifetime of the network compared to literature solutions