An analysis of multicasting optimisation mechanisms for intelligent edge computing with low-power and lossy networks

This work studies the built-in multicast model in Contiki OS to provide the basis of a comparative evaluation for a new optimisation model using Radio Duty Cycling (RDC) mechanism. A significant amount of energy is consumed at the edge node executing various multicast routing protocols in Low-Power and Lossy Networks (LLN). The optimisation of the routing protocol and selection of an efficient multicast transmission model has the potential to reduce energy consumption in Edge Computing (EC) enabled LLN. With the precise objective of reducing energy consumption, this paper utilises a well-known RDC technique in multicast communication scenarios. To this end, a series of experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of the existing RDC mechanisms proposed in the literature. The evaluation results are then utilised to develop an efficient RDC-based multicast transmission model. The comparative performance analysis reveals a 23.7% reduction in the RDC rate compared to the traditional model, consequently improving the energy consumption of EC-enabled LLN.