Software defined topology control strategies for the Internet of Things

Abstract

Topology control is a crucial process for an efficient operation of a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). The usage of WSNs in the Internet of Things (IoT) emerges new research challenges and novel applications. Recent WSNs proposals enhanced with Software Defined Networking (SDN) practices introduce new innovative network control strategies and protocols based on central control logic. This paper introduces two novel topology control techniques for Software Defined WSNs that can be combined and adapted to the context environment. In this direction, we propose CORAL-SDN, an SDN framework for WSNs that enables dynamic deployment and configuration of multivariate topology control mechanisms. We evaluate such topology control strategies using our own novel SDN experimentation facility for IoT. The results demonstrate significant improvements on WSNs management, control features and performance in terms of topology construction time and reduced topology maintenance overhead.