Hardware Acceleration of CoAP Protocol for High-Speed and Low-Power Internet of Things Communication

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a transformative technology facilitating seamless communication between diverse devices and systems, including resource-constrained devices. Speed efficiency and energy efficiency in communication protocols for IoT devices are crucial. The constrained application protocol (CoAP) is a promising, lightweight, and efficient protocol for IoT, offering robust messaging capabilities while conserving resources. An emerging research focus and challenge is designing hardware accelerators for CoAP that are fast, energy-efficient, and reliable. This article addresses that research challenge by proposing a CoAP hardware accelerator for optimizing message processing in resource-constrained IoT environments. The proposed accelerator’s architecture uses virtual channels (VCs) to manage incoming message traffic efficiently, enabling concurrent processing and enhancing throughput capacity. The accelerator minimizes processing delays and improves the system responsiveness by leveraging dynamic resource allocation and streamlined routing mechanisms. The proposed method is implemented using VHDL on Altera 10 GX FPGA. It reduces power consumption by consuming only 112.4 mW. Additionally, the accelerator demonstrates an impressive average latency of $58~\mu $ s and energy consumption of $6.62~\mu $ J, showcasing its superior performance metrics. The efficacy of the proposed CoAP hardware accelerator is tested through detailed evaluation and comparative analysis, affirming its superior performance over previously reported results in the literature.