12. Conclusion

The RPL protocol certainly has the potential to play a key role in the Internet of Things:

• it defines all the mechanisms required for routing to function correctly in LLNs;

  • it enables routing by taking node resources as a parameter;

  • it has a small footprint because it is a distance vector protocol;

  • it can operate on any link layer;

  • it allows multipathing;

• on the market, RPL is supported by hardware manufacturer CISCO and is currently the only routing protocol standardized by the IETF for LLNs.

However, it's important to bear in mind that RPL is an extremely complex protocol. In this article, we've touched on the essential mechanisms...