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Arch Rock, Sensinode Conduct First Interoperability Test of IETF 6LoWPAN StandardSAN FRANCISCO --(Business Wire)-- Wireless sensor network vendors Arch Rock Corporation and Sensinode Ltd. have conducted the first successful interoperability demonstration of the IETF 6LoWPAN standard for IPv6 communication over the IEEE 802.15.4 low-power radio. The test, completed earlier this month at Arch Rock's San Francisco headquarters, was the first to show two independent implementations of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 6LoWPAN standard communicating with each other over a low-power wireless network. The IETF 6LoWPAN standard defines how IP communication is conducted over low-power wireless IEEE 802.15.4 personal-area networks; it utilizes IPv6, the latest and most scalable version of the ubiquitous Internet Protocol. In March 2007 Arch Rock introduced the first commercial implementation of 6LoWPAN in its Primer Pack/IP offering, followed shortly by Sensinode with its NanoStack protocol solution. Dr. David E. Culler, Arch Rock co-founder and chief technology officer, said, "This demonstration is an important milestone illustrating how open standards will accelerate the adoption of wireless sensor networks. The longstanding IETF emphasis on 'rough consensus and running code' is highlighted here in a pragmatic standard leading rapidly to multi-vendor interoperability." Culler, whose technical team at Arch Rock made substantial contributions to the draft standard, said, "Over the past decade we have seen a proliferation of wireless mesh routing specifications from industry forums and proprietary protocols, but none is compatible with any of the others. The introduction of a simple IP option opens a path to convergence and mainstream adoption." Zach Shelby, chief technology officer of Sensinode, added, "6LoWPAN will enable a revolution of the Internet, truly connecting a huge number of embedded devices through IPv6. Enterprise deployment of wireless sensing has been hampered over the past decade by proprietary radio technology and difficult Internet integration. The whole industry will benefit from the open protocols, vendor interoperability and scalable Internet integration we are seeing as a result of 6LoWPAN." The IETF 6LoWPAN working group was formed in 2004 to address the challenge of enabling wireless IPv6 communication over the newly standardized IEEE 802.15.4 low-power radio for devices with limited space, power and memory, such as sensor nodes. Among the group's challenges were developing a practical means of compressing IP's powerful addressing and header information to fit into small packets whose transmission would consume minimum energy, and accommodating efficient multihop routing over IEEE 802.15.4 mesh networks. About Sensinode Ltd. Sensinode Ltd., located in Oulu, Finland, provides IP-based wireless sensor network (WSN) system solutions and R&D tools, enabling the real-time enterprise. Sensinode products include advanced protocol stacks, enterprise integration, routers and wireless sensors. The company's products are used in security, logistics, health, and industrial applications. Innovative technology based on the IEEE 802.15.4 radio family and Internet Protocol standards ensures global interoperability and long lifetime. Sensinode is a spin-off of the Centre for Wireless Communications, where the founders have previously pioneered IP-based wireless sensor networking. For more information, visit http://www.sensinode.com. About Arch Rock Corporation Arch Rock is a pioneer in open-standards-based wireless sensor network technology. The company's products, which gather data from the physical world and integrate it into the enterprise IT infrastructure using IP networking and web services, are used in environmental monitoring, tracking and logistics, industrial automation and control. Arch Rock's founders, while at the University of California-Berkeley and Intel Research, did seminal research and development work on WSNs, creating three generations of wireless sensor nodes, mesh networking protocols, and the leading operating system for sensor networks. For more information, visit http://www.archrock.com. |
