2178
5, MARCH 1, 2018
Improved Trickle Algorithm for Routing Protocol
for Low Power and Lossy Networks
Sonam Goyal and Trilok Chand, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract— Routing protocol for low power and lossy
networks (RPL) is designed in order to avoid the routing issues
in wireless sensor networks due to limited energy of nodes, link
failures, and so on. RPL constructs the destination oriented
directed acyclic graph (DODAG) out of the physical network
by using various constraints, such as different routing metrics,
objective functions, and so on. The trickle timer in RPL is used
to reduce the control traffic overhead by dividing the time into
intervals. It increases its sending rate of the control messages
if an inconsistency is detected to resolve it quickly otherwise it
decreases its sending rate by exponentially increasing its window
size. The trickle-F algorithm solves the load balancing problem
by implementing the fair broadcast suppression mechanism. Our
proposed improved-trickle algorithm sets the redundancy counter
to zero not at the beginning of new interval but at the time of
suppression or transmission of the DODAG information object
message in the trickle-F algorithm to solve the load balancing
problem and to reduce the energy and power consumption by
taking into consideration the messages heard from time t to the
end of the interval.
Index Terms— DODAG, RPL, trickle, WSN.
I. I NTRODUCTION
T HERE has been an exponential growth in the Inter-
net of Things (IoT) in the last few years. Billions
of heterogeneous devices get connected to the internet like
health monitoring, automated buildings etc. Wireless Sensor
Networks (WSNs) are generally composed of small battery
powered devices [1]. Routing is a critical problem in wireless
sensor networks because of several reasons such as the limited
energy of nodes, possibility of link failures etc. Routing Over
Low power and Lossy networks (ROLL) group of Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) has made various efforts for
designing an efficient routing protocol for low power and
lossy networks. Then finally came a Routing Protocol for Low
Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) for such networks. RPL has
been adopted by IETF in March 2012 [2]. It is an Internet
Protocol version 6.0 (IPv6) based proactive distance vector
routing protocol [3].
RPL constructs the Destination Oriented Directed Acyclic
Graph (DODAG) out of the physical network by using
various constraints such as different routing metrics, objec-
tive functions etc [4]. DODAGs are constructed by using
Manuscript received August 14, 2017; accepted December 8, 2017. Date of
publication December 27, 2017; date of current version January 31, 2018.
The associate editor coordinating the review of this paper and approving
it for publication was Prof. Kazuaki Sawada. (Corresponding author:
Sonam Goyal.)
The authors are with the Computer Science and Engineering Depart-
ment, Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh 160012, India (e-mail:
sonamgoyal415@gmail.com; trilokchand@pec.ac.in; a_trilok_chand@yahoo.
com).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSEN.2017.2787584
1558-1748 © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 18, NO.
signaling or the control traffic composed of three different
messages named DODAG Information Solicitation (DIS),
DODAG Information Object (DIO), and Destination Adver-
tisement Object (DAO). The main control traffic overhead
is due to the DIO messages because DAO message has to
be forwarded up to the sink only while DIO message has
to be broadcasted to one hop distance and the overhead due
to DIS is negligible because these messages are sent only at
the beginning to find the neighbor node in order to solicit
a DIO message.
The main goals to be achieved in RPL are to reduce the
power and energy consumption as well as to reduce the
network convergence time. Power consumption is directly
proportional to the number of the DIO messages in the
network. Thus the power consumption can be reduced by
decreasing the number of the control messages. Therefore,
the Trickle algorithm has been developed to reduce the control
traffic overhead while constructing the DODAG topology.
It increases its sending rate of the control messages if an
inconsistency is detected otherwise it decreases its sending rate
by exponentially increasing its window size [5]. For achieving
synchronization among the nodes in asynchronous networks,
the listen only period is introduced to overcome the short listen
problem otherwise the nodes start to send their own control
messages as the interval starts which may result in the dupli-
cate transmissions thus increasing the power consumption. The
listen only period is the first half of each interval.
Load balancing issue in the original Trickle Algorithm is
solved by Trickle-F Algorithm [6]. It implements the fair
Broadcast suppression mechanism by keeping track of a
variable which increases with DIO suppression but is set to
zero on DIO transmission. But in this, the redundancy counter
is set to zero at the end of current interval due to which the
DIOs transmission after time t (time at which DIO is either
suppressed or transmitted) to the end of the interval are not
utilized which leads to more power and energy consumption.
So in our proposed I-Trickle Algorithm, this problem has also
been solved by setting redundancy counter to zero at time t
in Trickle-F algorithm.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section II
briefly describes Trickle-F algorithm, Section III describes
literature survey, Section IV explains the proposed I-Trickle
algorithm, simulation results are presented in Section V and
finally Section VI concludes the paper.
II. T RICKLE -F A LGORITHM
Trickle-F algorithm [6] is a variant of existing Trickle
algorithm [5]. The Trickle algorithm suffers from two main
GOYAL AND CHAND: I-TRICKLE ALGORITHM FOR RPL 2179

issues. One is the load balancing problem in which some nodes B. Function INTERVALBEGINS ( )
don’t get a chance to send its DIO message due to which some In this phase, whenever a new interval begins it resets
of the routes remain undiscovered. Other problem with the redundancy counter c to zero and it chooses a random time t in
Trickle algorithm is the more power and energy consumption. [I/2(s+1), I/2s ] instead of choosing it in [I/2, I] which is done
Load balancing problem is solved by Trickle-F algorithm in the original Trickle algorithm. A node which has larger
by maintaining a variable s which represents successive value of s i.e. whose number of successive DIO suppressions
DIO suppressions. are more is given the chance to send its DIO message in next
Trickle-F algorithm uses three parameters namely: turn because the random time t is inversely proportional to the
Imin – The minimum interval length value s.
Imax – The maximum interval length
k – The redundancy constant C. Function CONSISTENTTRANSMISSIONRECEIVED ( )
Trickle-F algorithm uses three variables namely:
In this phase, upon receiving a consistent DIO message
c – A redundancy counter which records the number of
from its neighboring node it simply increments the redundancy
consistent DIO messages in current interval.
counter c by 1.
I – The current interval length which lies between
[Imin , Imax ].
D. Function TIMEREXPIRES ( )
t – A random time in [I/2(s+1), I/2s ].
In this phase, when the timer expires i.e. when the random
time t is reached, it compares the value of redundancy con-
Algorithm 1 Trickle-F Algorithm stant k and redundancy counter c. If the value of c is less
function INITIALIZATION ( ) than or equal to the value of k then it simply transmits its
I = Imin DIO message and the value of variable s is set to zero. But if
s=0 the value of variable c is larger than the value of redundancy
function INTERVALBEGINS ( ) constant k then the DIO transmission is suppressed and the s
t = random(I/2(s+1), I/2s ) variable is incremented by 1.
c=0
function CONSISTENTTRANSMISSIONRECEIVED ( ) E. Function INTERVALENDS ( )
c = c+1
In this phase, when the current interval ends it resets the
function TIMEREXPIRES ( )
redundancy counter c to zero. If no inconsistent messages are
if (k >= c) then
heard then it simply doubles the length of current interval.
Transmit DIO message
If the interval length exceeds the value of Imax , it resets I
s=0
to Imax only. But if inconsistent messages are heard then it
else
simply sets I to Imin and also sets the variable s to zero.
DIO transmission is suppressed
s = s+1 III. R ELATED W ORK
endif
One of the major research challenges in RPL protocol
function INTERVALENDS ( )
is to reduce the control traffic overhead. The control traffic
c=0
overhead is composed of three different types of control
if InconsistentTransmisssionReceived then
messages named DODAG Information Solicitation (DIS),
I = Imin
DODAG Information Object (DIO), and Destination Adver-
s=0
tisement Object (DAO). Trickle algorithm has been proposed
else
in [5] which divides the time into the intervals. To resolve any
I = I∗2
inconsistency, it increases its sending rate of control messages
if (I >= Imax ) then
otherwise decreases it. But in this there are two main routing
I = Imax
issues which are load balancing and the power and the energy
endif
consumption problem.
endif
Another approach which takes into consideration the load
balancing issue has been presented in [6]. It aims to solve the
Each function used in Trickle-F algorithm is described in load balancing problem. Each node maintains a variable s to
detail in the following subsections. keep track of the number of consecutive DIO suppressions.
At time t, if DIO is suppressed then s is incremented other-
wise s is set to zero. The time t is chosen in the interval
A. Function INITIALIZATION ( ) [I/2(s+1), I/2s ]. So the node with higher s value is given
In this phase, when the algorithm begins to execute, the priority to transmit in the next time interval. This algo-
it selects I from the interval [Imin , (2Imax )∗ Imin ]. Usually it rithm implements the Fair Broadcast Suppression mechanism.
begins by setting I to Imin and it also initializes a variable s An Optimized Trickle algorithm has been presented in [7].
to zero where variable s represents the number of successive It decreases the latency of the original Trickle algorithm.
DIO suppressions. It also does not incur any extra cost in doing this. On resetting
2180 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 18, NO. 5, MARCH 1, 2018

I to Imin when an inconsistency gets detected, choose time t The I-Trickle algorithm differs from Trickle-F algorithm in
in [0, Imin ] interval instead of [I/2, I] to resolve the incon- a manner that the redundancy counter c is set to zero at the
sistencies quickly. It suffers from the listen only period in random time t instead of setting it to zero at the end of current
the subsequent time intervals which increases the network interval or at the beginning of new interval. The I-Trickle
convergence time. algorithm is presented below.
Adaptive Trickle algorithm has been proposed in [8] which
mainly focuses on redundancy constant k. This algorithm Algorithm 2 I-Trickle Algorithm
allows each node to adapt its suppression mechanism by function INITIALIZATION ( )
considering its local node density. Value of k should be low I = Imin
in sparse networks and should be high in dense networks. s=0
Adaptive-k algorithm suggests that each node sets its own k c=0
(k = f (c)) value by considering the local neighboring function INTERVALBEGINS ( )
node density contained in redundancy counter c. E-Trickle t = random(0, I/2s )
algorithm has been presented in [9]. It reduces the network function CONSISTENTTRANSMISSIONRECEIVED ( )
convergence time by reducing the need of listen only period c = c+1
to a greater extent. This algorithm sets c to zero at time t not at function TIMEREXPIRES ( )
the beginning of the interval. It chooses time t in [0, I] instead if (k >= c) then
of [I/2, I]. It thus improves the efficiency of RPL by reducing Transmit DIO message
the network convergence time but the power consumption and s=0
the scalability remains the same. c=0
ME-Trickle algorithm has been proposed in [10]. It is an else
optimized version of E-Trickle algorithm. If no inconsistency DIO transmission is suppressed
is detected, then there is no need to exponentially increase s = s+1
the transmission window size but automatically move to Imax . c=0
Fewer control messages needs to be sent hence saving the endif
energy. At the beginning of new interval, set I equals to Imax function INTERVALENDS ( )
instead of I = 2∗ I. Thus the total number of packets sent and if InconsistentTransmisssionReceived then
the network latency both are less in ME-Trickle as compared I = Imin
to E-Trickle because of direct jumping to Imax . Trickle-plus s=0
algorithm has been proposed in [11]. With Trickle, a network c=0
can have either both lower convergence time and high energy else
consumption or high convergence time and low energy con- I = I∗ 2
sumption. Trickle-plus aims at achieving optimum values of If (I >= Imax ) then
both the network convergence time and energy consumption. I = Imax
It makes the new interval size equals to 2∗ I∗ SF, where SF is endif
the Shift Factor indicating how many interval doublings can endif
be skipped. Thus the network gets converged quickly with less
energy consumption.
A. Function INITIALIZATION ( )
IV. I-T RICKLE A LGORITHM In this phase, when the algorithm begins to execute,
An Improved Trickle Algorithm (I-Trickle) has been it selects I from the interval [Imin , (2Imax )∗ Imin ]. Usually it
proposed which overcomes the shortcomings of Trickle-F begins by setting I to Imin and it also initializes a variable s
algorithm. This I-Trickle Algorithm uses three different para- to zero where variable s represents the number of successive
meters which are described as follows. DIO suppressions. It also sets the redundancy counter c to
k – It is an integer representing the redundancy factor or the zero in this phase.
redundancy constant. B. Function INTERVALBEGINS ( )
Imin – It is the minimum length of the interval. It is measured In this phase, whenever a new interval begins it chooses a
in milliseconds or seconds. random time t in [0, I/2s ] instead of choosing it in [I/2, I]
Imax – It is an integer representing the number of Imin dou- which is done in the original Trickle algorithm. A node
blings. So the maximum length of the interval is (2Imax )∗ Imin . which has larger value of s i.e. whose number of successive
The I-Trickle Algorithm uses four variables namely: DIO suppressions are more is given the chance to send its
c – a redundancy counter which stores the number of DIO message in next turn because the random time t is
consistent messages received up to a certain time. inversely proportional to the value s.
I – the current interval length. It lies in between
[Imin , (2Imax )∗ Imin ]. C. Function CONSISTENTTRANSMISSIONRECEIVED ( )
t – a random time in the second half of the interval [I/2, I]. In this phase, upon receiving a consistent DIO message
s – a variable representing the number of successive DIO from its neighboring node it simply increments the redundancy
suppressions. counter c by 1.
GOYAL AND CHAND: I-TRICKLE ALGORITHM FOR RPL
TABLE I
S IMULATION PARAMETERS
D. Function TIMEREXPIRES ( )
In this phase, when the timer expires i.e. when the random
time t is reached, it compares the value of redundancy con-
stant k and redundancy counter c. If the value of c is less
than or equal to the value of k then it simply transmits its
DIO message and the value of variable s is set to zero. But if
the value of variable c is larger than the value of redundancy
constant then the DIO transmission is suppressed and the s
variable is incremented by 1. But in this phase in all the cases
i.e. either k is greater than c or k is equal to c or k is lesser
than c, c is set to zero at time t instead of setting it to zero at
the end of current interval at the beginning of new interval.
E. Function INTERVALENDS ( )
In this phase, if no inconsistent messages are heard then it
simply doubles the length of current interval. If the interval
length exceeds the value of Imax , it resets I to Imax only. But
if inconsistent messages are heard then it simply sets I to Imin
and also sets both the variable s and c to zero.
V. S IMULATION R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
The performance of I-Trickle algorithm has been analyzed
with respect to the existing Trickle-F algorithm in terms of
average power consumption, packet delivery ratio and average
energy consumption. The simulation has been performed in
Cooja simulator based on the simulation parameters illustrated
in Table I.
A. Performance Parameters for Simulation
Performance parameters used to compare the improved
algorithm (I-Trickle) with Trickle-F algorithm are explained
in the following subsections.
1) Average Power Consumption: Average power consump-
tion refers to the power consumed by a node in all the four
states of the system i.e. CPU mode, Low Power Mode (LPM),
Transmitting (TX) mode and Receiving (RX) mode. Power is
measured in millwatts (mw). It is calculated using the formula
given by (1) and (2).
Energest_value ∗ Curr ent ∗ V oltage
Power (mw) =
R_T I M E R ∗ Runti me
(1)
Aver age Power (mw)
Power (mw)
= (2)
T otal number o f nodes
Where Energest_value is the time in ticks the system is in
specific state. The system can be in CPU mode, LPM Mode,
2181
TX mode or RX mode. R_TIMER is 32768 ticks per second.
R_TIMER is used to convert the time from ticks into seconds.
The current is measured in milliAmperes (mA). The values
of current for CPU, LPM, TX and RX modes are 0.33 mA,
0.0011 mA, 18.8 mA and 17.4 mA respectively. The voltage
value is same for all the four states i.e. 3 volts. Runtime value
is obtained from powertrace_start(CLOCK_SECOND∗ a)
function where ‘a’ is the runtime and the power profile is
printed after every ‘a’ seconds.
2) Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR): The Packet Delivery Ratio
is the number of packets successfully delivered to the total
number of packets sent as shown by (3)
No.o f packets r ecei ved by desti nati on node
PDR =
No.o f packets sent by sour ce node
(3)
3) Average Energy Consumption: Average Energy Con-
sumption refers to the energy consumed by a node in all the
four states of a system i.e. in CPU mode, LPM mode, TX
mode and RX mode. Energy is measured in milliJoules (mJ).
It is calculated using the formula given by (4) and (5).
Energest_value ∗ Curr ent ∗ V oltage
Energy (m j ) =
R_T I M E R
(4)
Aver age Energy (m j )
Energy(m j )
= (5)
T otal number o f nodes
Thus Energy consumption is the sum of Energies consumed
in CPU, LPM, TX, RX modes.
B. Simulation Results
We have simulated the network in which all the nodes are
running ContikiOS over the Cooja simulator which is based
on the UBUNTU operating system.
Average power consumption refers to the power con-
sumed by a node in all the four states of the system i.e.
CPU mode, LPM mode, TX mode and RX mode. Average
power consumption of Trickle-F and our proposed algorithm
I-Trickle is shown in Fig. 1. Our I-Trickle algorithm has
less average power consumption as compared to the existing
Trickle-F Algorithm. In Trickle-F algorithm, the redundancy
counter c is set to zero at the end of current interval or at
the beginning of the new interval. This leads to more average
power consumption as the DIO messages heard from time t to
the end of the current interval are not utilized. But in
I-Trickle algorithm, the value of redundancy counter c is set
to zero at random time t not at the beginning of new interval
which leads to less average power consumption.
The Packet Delivery Ratio is measured by the ratio of the
number of packets a target node receives to the number of
packets a user node injects in to the network. Fig. 2 gives a
comparative analysis of the performance of Trickle-F and the
improved one I-Trickle. It can be inferred from the Fig. 2 that
the I-Trickle algorithm and the existing Trickle-F algorithm
have almost the same performance in terms of packet delivery
ratio. Trickle algorithms aims only to reduce the control traffic
2182
Fig. 1. Power versus number of nodes.
Fig. 2. PDR versus number of nodes.
Fig. 3. Energy versus number of nodes.
overhead by dividing the time into intervals. So there is no
significant difference in terms of packet delivery ratio in both
the Trickle-F algorithm and the I-Trickle algorithm.
Average Energy Consumption refers to the energy con-
sumed by a node in all the four states of a system i.e. in
CPU mode, LPM mode, TX mode and RX mode. Fig. 3 gives
a comparative analysis of performance of Trickle-F and the
improved one I-Trickle. It can be inferred from the Fig. 3 that
the I-Trickle algorithm has less average energy consumption
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 18, NO. 5, MARCH 1, 2018
as compared to the existing Trickle-F algorithm. In Trickle-F
algorithm, the redundancy counter c is set to zero at begin-
ning of the new interval. This leads to more average energy
consumption as the DIO messages heard from time t to the
end of the current interval are not utilized. But in I-Trickle
algorithm, the value of redundancy counter c is set to zero
at random time t not at the beginning of new interval which
leads to less average energy consumption.
VI. C ONCLUSION
A technique for solving both the problems of Trickle
Algorithm has been presented in this paper. The scheme
of Trickle-F has been modified to attain better power and
energy consumption. Results shows that the I-Trickle algo-
rithm achieves better performance than Trickle-F in terms of
both average power and average energy consumption i.e. both
power and energy consumption is less in I-Trickle algorithm
than the Trickle-F algorithm. But the packet delivery ratio
almost remains the same.
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GOYAL AND CHAND: I-TRICKLE ALGORITHM FOR RPL 2183

Sonam Goyal is a Research Scholar with the Computer Science and Engi- Trilok Chand (SM’17) is a Professor with the Com-
neering Department, Punjab Engineering College (Deemed to be University), puter Science and Engineering Department, Punjab
Sector-12, Chandigarh, India. She has completed two months training at Engineering College (Deemed to be University),
IIT Kanpur. Her professional skills include programming in C, C++, and Sector-12, Chandigarh, India. He has teaching expe-
Python languages. She has published two research papers in international rience of approximately 23 years. He has published
journals/conferences. Her research interests include Internet of Things, com- more than 100 papers in international and national
puter networks, and other similar related areas. journals and conferences. He has guided three Ph.D.
thesis, 34 M.E. thesis, and 29 B.E. projects. His
research interests include wireless and mobile net-
works, wireless sensor networks, and computer net-
works and related areas. He is a member of the
following professional societies: a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers India,
a Fellow of the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers,
a Member of the Indian Society of Technical Education, a Member of the
Computer Society of India, and a Member of the System Society of India.