What question did this study set out to answer?

The aim is to improve energy consumption and reduce latency in constrained e-ink IoT devices by introducing FIUDP.

June 26, 2026Open Access

FIUDP: A Zero-RTT, Forward Error Corrected Transport Protocol for Constrained E-ink IoT Devices

Key Points

The aim is to improve energy consumption and reduce latency in constrained e-ink IoT devices by introducing FIUDP.
Developed FIUDP protocol utilizing UDP, ChaCha20-Poly1305 cryptography, and Reed-Solomon FEC.
Evaluated hardware performance on a constrained RISC-V microcontroller (ESP32-C3).
Monitored execution time for decryption and error correction.
FIUDP showed resilience to burst packet loss, achieving efficient data recovery within Reed-Solomon bounds.
Execution time for decrypting and reconstructing missing segments was approximately 114 ms.
Server-side stream preparation completed in under a millisecond, enabling effective Zero-RTT operations.

Abstract

Battery-powered Internet of Things (IoT) devices, particularly ambient e-ink displays, suffer from significant latencyand energy consumption penalties induced by classicaltransport protocols like TCP and TLS. These legacy solutions demand multiple Round-Trip Time (RTT) handshakes,forcing the microcontroller’s radio to idle in power-hungrystates. To address this fundamental misalignment, we present FIUDP, a secure, unidirectional protocol rooted in theconcept of computational asymmetry. FIUDP aggressivelyoffloads protocol complexity to a mains-powered server,utilizing UDP combined with ChaCha20-Poly1305 cryptography and Reed-Solomon Forward Error Correction (FEC)to entirely eliminate the need for costly client-side acknowledgments. Hardware evaluation on a constrained RISC-Vmicrocontroller (ESP32-C3) demonstrates resilience to burstpacket loss within the bounds of the Reed-Solomon erasurecapacity. The firmware requires approximately 114 ms of execution time to decrypt payloads and mathematically reconstruct missing fragments, operating within a peak memoryfootprint of roughly 266 KB. Concurrently, the serverside pipeline completes full stream preparation in undera millisecond. Consequently, FIUDP establishes an optimal“Zero-RTT” networking paradigm, drastically extending theoperational lifespan and battery autonomy of large-scale IoTdisplay fleets.

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