6LoWPAN is an acronym

Acronym and initialism

Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word. These components may be individual letters or parts of words . There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of the various terms , nor on written usage...

 of IPv6

IPv6

Internet Protocol version 6 is a version of the Internet Protocol . It is designed to succeed the Internet Protocol version 4...

 over Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks. 6lowpan is the name of a working group in the internet area of the IETF.

The 6LoWPAN concept originated from the idea that "the Internet Protocol could and should be applied even to the smallest devices," and that low-power devices with limited processing capabilities should be able to participate in the Internet of Things

Internet of Things

The Internet of Things refers to uniquely identifiable objects and their virtual representations in an Internet-like structure. The term Internet of Things was first used by Kevin Ashton in 1999. The concept of the Internet of Things first became popular through the Auto-ID Center and related...

.

The 6lowpan group has defined encapsulation and header compression mechanisms that allow IPv6 packets to be sent to and received from over IEEE 802.15.4

IEEE 802.15.4

IEEE 802.15.4 is a standard which specifies the physical layer and media access control for low-rate wireless personal area networks . It is maintained by the IEEE 802.15 working group....

 based networks.