Send ipv6 packets over nRF mesh network

[Samir]

Hello fellow developers, and Nordic nerds,

I am very new to Nordic ecosystem as well as ble 5 mesh networking. 

after seeing the ble mesh packet hopping feature, I am curious to know if it’s realistic to actually do following points:

1. Send ipv6 packets over ble mesh?

2. Send ipv6 packets over mesh to serve web pages?

3. If both are possible, what would be the challenges in implementation of a real time solution using this?

My apologies in advance if I asked some silly questions or if those questions are answered already. If so kindly point me to correct directions.

also can you point me to the hardware devices need to test my theory. I am cooking up a solution for a real world problem. I am not sure if I can succeed but I will really appreciate your helps. 

samir

[Hung Bui]

Hi Samir, 

Bluetooth mesh is defined as a local network with no relation to how the network be connected to the outside world. So all the data in/out of the network has to be routed via a gateway which is not included in the scope. How you implement the gateway is not defined and it's up to the developer to design the conversion, in this case from ipv6 packet to mesh packet. 

In short you can design a node with internet connection as a gateway node. This node has an IPv6 address. From that node you can control or collect data of other nodes in the mesh network with your own proprietary protocol. 

[Samir]

Hello Hung,

Thank you for the comment and I understand. My intention is to create a virtual data channel using nrf52840 ic to give some basic of Internet where real world Internet is not available geographically. Currently I am evaluating the concept and hopefully I will conclude on this. 

before actually taking or dropping the idea, I have some few questions if you can please help me on those:

1. NRF52840 support a mesh network using ble5.2 with a data throughput of 1-2mbps covering a minimum of 100 meter radius of coverage. And the network is self healing with nearly zero failure if enough nodes connected to route the packets. This is my assumption based on study of nrf52840, let me know if I am wrong. 

2. if my assumptions are right, I just want to make a virtual cable to transfer the ipv6 data using mesh network. 

3. I understand the concept of edge/border routers but my question was is there any currently standards or protocol like thread already defined to route the ipv6 packets in the mesh network?

Regards,

Samir

[Hung Bui]

Hi Samir, 

1. Bluetooth Mesh is based on BLE v4.2 not v5.2. In the future new Bluetooth Mesh spec will come out with the features of BLE v5.x but not until now. Other understanding about self healing and large coverage is correct (100m outdoor line of sight node to node)

2. This not a good idea because Mesh is not designed for high through put data. It's made for lighting application where the data is only a few bytes. The throughput is only 3kbps. The ipv6 packet has very big overhead, the size of a packet is large. Please have a look at 6LowPAN standard to see how it can help compressing the ipv6 packets.

3. No, at least what I know of. 

[Samir]

Hello Hung,

I understand, thank you for clarifying the queries. I just have 1 more questions, please help me understand that. 

1. My assumption is to setup a paired bridge nodes. Like Ai and Bi creates a pair Pi where i can be the hopping middle node locations. If one node on the paired node down other acts like a backup. Like if A down B will forward the message or packets to the next pair P. The repetition will be minimum because a packet only can forward to 2 nodes or back to 2 nodes of that paired. Like if a message from pair Pn is visible to Pn-1 or Pn+1. In this case what can be the maximum throughput of a payload. I believe it ll be more than 3 Kbps. I understand the mesh is designed for minimal packets. If needed I ll design a intermediate protocol to reduce the size of headers and compress the payload. How about put the intermediate nodes as relay node always up an running. And in worst case as I said the relay node will only communicate to another relay node previously provisioned without dynamic routing which makes it dedicated routing path. I am not sure if it makes sense. But is it will increase the communication speed, and if so can you give me a rough idea about the speed?

Can you please also suggest me some hardwares to do a poc on this concept. Cheap hardwares suggestion will be appropriate as it will be a community project afterwards for providing a cheap way to provide Internet in urban areas. 

I really appreciate your help. 

Regards,

Samir

[Hung Bui]

Hi Samir, 

If you are planing to use mesh as a way of expanding Internet coverage, I would suggest you to look into other technologies. Long range Wifi or LORAWan is something you may be interested in. 

Bluetooth Mesh can only deliver a few bytes on each packet it definitely won't fit of what you are planning to do. 

If you still want to test with Bluetooth Mesh, please get started with one of our nRF5 DK, for example the nRF52840 Development Kit (PCA10056)

[Samir]

Hello Hung,

Thank you for your suggestions on LORAWan. I will look into it. 

Regards,

Samir