Low power and Lossy Networks (LLNs), e.g., sensor networks, have a myriad of applications, such as Smart Grid and Smart Cities. Various challenges are presented with LLNs, such as lossy links, low bandwidth, battery operation, low memory and/or processing capability, etc. One example routing solution to LLN challenges is a protocol called Routing Protocol for LLNs or “RPL,” which is a distance vector routing protocol that builds a Destination Oriented Directed Acyclic Graph (DODAG, or simply DAG) in addition to a set of features to bound the control traffic, support local (and slow) repair, etc. The RPL architecture provides a flexible method by which each node performs DODAG discovery, construction, and maintenance.
Certain LLNs, such as advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) systems used to collect meter readings, as well as other data reporting networks, can be very large in scale. For example, a single collector/access point can serve thousands of meters while an AMI system with multiple collectors may service millions of meters. In addition, in a mesh field area network (FAN), congestion of packets carrying data (reporting/metered data) can be a significant issue, where data packets from/to a given meter may have to contend with multiple (at times hundreds) of packets from other meters over each radio mesh link. In addition, in many reporting networks, most if not all of the traffic is either Point-to-Multipoint (P2MP) or Multipoint-to-Point (MP2P). Consequently, links are getting more congested as they get closer to the “point”, such as a collector (e.g., DAG root node) where the traffic tends to be concentrated.
Though reporting data may be generated (sensed/metered) at a frequent interval (e.g., every few minutes), to reduce congestion and provide a more scalable system, reporting data is currently stored at the originating reporting device, and transmitted at a less frequent rate (e.g., every eight hours). This less frequent rate, however, is random with respect to other meters, and may still jeopardize the efficiency of the network by causing collisions where the less frequent rate still overlaps reporting transmissions from other nodes in the network.