A lightweight management protocol for IPv6-based wireless sensor networks

In this paper, we propose a lightweight management protocol for IPv6-based wireless sensor networks (WSNs). IPv6-based WSNs use large numbers of battery-operated devices with limited computing and energy resources. Network performance is influenced by link quality and energy resources of node devices and node failure in networks may affect the end-to-end communications. Thus real-time network management is important for the network performance. To meet the demands of the management service in resource limited WSNs and the real-time network management requirements of local area networks, an interactive communication model and a management information base (MIB) for device are firstly designed. Then we develop common and unified access methods for management objects and attributes, and specifically, to realize the management of frequently-used attributes, specific command frames are proposed. Compared to the traditional management protocols, the proposed lightweight protocol reduces the management packet length, consumes less energy and saves code space. Test results show that the protocol runs well in the practical IPv6-based WSNs and manages devices effectively.