Journal Article

An Adaptive Protocol Selection Framework for Energy-Efficient IoT Communication: Dynamic Optimization Through Context-Aware Decision Making

Azarskov, Maksim, Żatuchin, Dmitrij

2025

Overview

The rapid growth of Internet of Things (IoT) deployments has created an urgent need for energy-efficient communication strategies that can adapt to dynamic operational conditions. This study presents a novel adaptive protocol selection framework that dynamically optimizes IoT communication energy consumption through context-aware decision making, achieving up to 34% energy reduction compared to static protocol selection. The framework is grounded in a comprehensive empirical evaluation of three widely used IoT communication protocols—MQTT, CoAP, and HTTP—using Intel’s Running Average Power Limit (RAPL) for precise energy measurement across varied network conditions including packet loss (0–20%) and latency variations (1–200 ms). Our key contribution is the design and validation of an adaptive selection mechanism that employs multi-criteria decision making with hysteresis control to prevent oscillation, dynamically switching between protocols based on six runtime metrics: message frequency, payload size, network conditions, packet loss rate, available energy budget, and QoS requirements. Results show MQTT consumes only 40% of HTTP’s energy per byte at high volumes (>10,000 messages), while HTTP remains practical for low-volume traffic (<10 msg/min). A novel finding reveals receiver nodes consistently consume 15–20% more energy than senders, requiring new design considerations for IoT gateways. The framework demonstrates robust performance across simulated real-world conditions, maintaining 92% of optimal performance while requiring 85% less computation than machine learning approaches. These findings offer actionable guidance for IoT architects and developers, positioning this work as a practical solution for energy-aware IoT communication in production environments.

• Publisher: MDPI AG
• Subject: Access control / Adaptation / adaptive protocol selection / Analysis / Architecture / CoAP / Communication / Comparative analysis / Computer network protocols / Computer networks / context-aware systems / Cost control / Decision making / Edge computing / Energy budget / Energy consumption / Energy efficiency / Energy management / Energy measurement / Energy use / energy-efficient IoT / HTTP / Information networks / Internet of Things / Machine learning / Messages / MQTT / Multiple criterion / Network interface cards / Network latency / Optimization / Quality of service architectures / Software engineering