On the Need of Source Address for Route-Error Delivery in 6LoWPAN

Low-power Wireless Personal Area Networks (LoWPANs) comprise devices that conform to the IEEE standard 802.15.4. These networks need to be connected with other wireless and wired networks in order to maximize the utilization of information and other resources which are mainly associated with the Internet Protocol (IP)-based networks. The transmission of IPv6 over Low Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPANs), requires a fragmentation and reassembly layer that also carries out header compression for transmission efficiency. The existing proposed header format includes the originator's address in adaptation layer, to ensure along with other issues, that in case of a link failure, route error messages are delivered back to the originator. We propose the Unicast Back-Propagation Mechanism (UBP) that delivers the Route Error Message (RERR) to the source even without having the originator's address in 6LoWPAN adaptation layer packet format. We make use of MAC layer address for sending the RERR to the previous hop node, back tracking the route hop by hop, eventually to the source. The simulation results show that our solution provides considerable header compression yet shows better diagnostic performance as the RERR delivery mechanism in standard ad-hoc routing.