Experimental Evaluation of Unicast and Multicast CoAP Group Communication
Date
2016-07-21
Authors
Ishaq, Isam
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
MDPI
Abstract
The Internet of Things (IoT) is expanding rapidly to new domains in which embedded
devices play a key role and gradually outnumber traditionally-connected devices. These devices
are often constrained in their resources and are thus unable to run standard Internet protocols.
The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a new alternative standard protocol that implements
the same principals as the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), but is tailored towards constrained
devices. In many IoT application domains, devices need to be addressed in groups in addition to being
addressable individually. Two main approaches are currently being proposed in the IoT community
for CoAP-based group communication. The main difference between the two approaches lies in
the underlying communication type: multicast versus unicast. In this article, we experimentally
evaluate those two approaches using two wireless sensor testbeds and under different test conditions.
We highlight the pros and cons of each of them and propose combining these approaches in a
hybrid solution to better suit certain use case requirements. Additionally, we provide a solution for
multicast-based group membership management using CoAP.
Description
Keywords
wireless sensor networks , Internet of Things , CoAP , sensors , group communication , multicast , entities