6LoWPAN protocol
6LowPAN (IPv6 in Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks) for IEEE 802.15.4 networks

The 6LoWPAN protocol has been developed to define IPv6 adaptation, as well as how to transport IP datagrams over IEEE 802.15.4 links and perform the configuration functions required to form and maintain an IPv6 subnet. The main function is to compress IPv6 packet headers. Compared with IPv4, this task is made easier by the absence of unpredictable fields such as the identifier or checksum. As a result, header compression does not require any particular context in which these values should be stored, and only their evolution transmitted. 6LoWPAN compression is therefore stateless, making it compatible with datagram relaying; not all packets have to pass through the same equipment for the compression stage.

The 6LoWPAN protocol can operate on two network architectures (figure 3).