Internet to WSN configuration and access using 6LoWPAN

Abstract: The Internet of Things mission is to connect any objects to the Internet, in order to provide the ability to access everything, everywhere. It will enable people to control and monitor their environment in a very convenient way. In order to fulfill the Internet of Things mission, one idea is to wrap a non-IP based protocol stack in the objects equipped with sensors, actuators and computing resources to enable them to be connected to the Internet through a protocol translation gateway. An alternative and competing idea, is to embed the TCP/IP stack into such smart objects, enabling them to interact with the Internet seamlessly. However, in order to satisfy the Internet of Things needs such as scalability, interoperability and simplicity of configuration and management, the use of IP architecture for smart objects is of interest, since it has proven itself a highly scalable, interoperable and simple communication technology. In particular, the new optimized Internet Protocol, IPv6, which is capable of providing any single object with a unique address, accompanied by many other great features such as plug-and-play and a real end-to-end connectivity, can offer great benefits to the Internet of Things. Nevertheless, most of the smart objects specially deployed in Wireless Sensor Networks a subset of Internet of Things, are not able to adapt the large IPv6 packet because of their Link- Layer limitations. Hence, it is a quite challenging task for these devices to transmit an IPv6 packet. For this reason, the Internet Engineering Task Force organization has offered an IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN) solution in order to solve the IPv6 adaptability problem. This thesis presents the design and deployment of an IPv6-based WSN using this solution. The result of this work is building a 6LoWPAN based on the Contiki OS. This WSN is able to send the measured environment temperature to a web server and control the status of a light through the Internet in a standard, scalable, and seamless way.