The Design Of A Light-weight TCP/IP Protocol Based On Wireless Sensor Network Application

Wireless sensor network (WSN) consists of small nodes with sensing, computation, communications capabilities and has broad application prospects. Sensor nodes need transmit data to a server with large capacity memory on the external network, while the external network users can monitor and control WSN. The most direct way to interconnect WSN with Internet is that implement TCP/IP on WSN nodes. As a primary protocol for the next generation Internet, IPv6 new features, such as huge address space, neighbor discovery, address auto-configuration and so on, provide feasibility for some wireless sensor network applications. But WSN nodes are embedded devices with low computing power, small storage capacity and limited energy. If we want to achieve TCP/IPv6 protocol stack on WSN nodes, we need to address the size and power consumption.This paper researches how to interconnect WSN with IPv6 network and presents solutions combining the features of wireless sensor networks and IPv6 network. First of all, all-IP interconnection method will be used. After describe the composition, characteristics and standards of WSN and analyze network topology and IEEE802.15.4 standard, we obtain requirements, design features and functional limitations of WSN applications. Then TCP/IP protocol's principle has been analyzed in order to figure out problems will be met on using TCP/IP on WSN nodes and proposed light-weight TCP/IP protocol stack design principles and reducing methods. IPv6, ICMPv6, ND protocol, UDP, TCP and IPSec have been redesigned by reducing packet header and capability and coded by C language including header structure, protocol process and protocol functions. Finally, a simulation platform has been built in order to simulating light-weight TCP/IP protocol based on WSN. Using Cygwin to imitate Linux environment and using SkyEye to imitate embedded systems.The light-weight TCP/IP protocol can supports general applications with configurable and portability. Moreover the protocol can achieve high performance in using less system resources and easy to interconnect. It has certain advantages compared with existing protocols.