Survey on congestion control mechanisms for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Congestion is very common in 6LoWPAN networks, but classical congestion control techniques do not suit well to the resource constrained environments. The main goal of this paper is to make an overview of the existing congestion control techniques for constrained environment and propose a need for the development of new flexible technique. It shall address all restrictions set by the environment and at the same time be generic enough. If the congestion control mechanism will be implemented at the application layer, i.e. as an improved extension of Constrained Application Protocol, then such solution will not be generic, as only this protocol will have modification. It would be more beneficial if the research will result in a new general solution suitable for the Constrained Application Protocol congestion control mechanism and other protocols. In this paper an overview of congestion control techniques for constrained environment is made, scenarios of network performance, when congestion can appear and become a catastrophic are underlined. An idea of improving congestion control mechanism of Constrained Application Protocol is proposed. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.