Implementation of Software-Defined 6lowpans in Contiki OS

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are one of the main building blocks of the future Internet of Things (IoT). Thanks to the introduction of the 6LoWPAN standard, WSNs can also be integrated into IP networks in a seamless manner. In a previous work, we defined SD-6LoWPAN, an architecture specifically designed to enable software defined networking in 6LoWPANs. In this work, we focus on the implementation of the proposed SDN solution on top of real constrained devices powered by the Contiki operating system. We illustrate the main challenges discovered, and how they have been addressed by extending the Contiki network stack in order to provide a working prototype of SD-6LoWPAN. The latter is then validated by running a set of experiments on a real testbed.