DTLS Static Context Header Compression -Implementation and Evaluation in the Contiki-NG

This paper presents a compression scheme for the Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) protocol that is based on Static Context Header Compression techniques. We demonstrate its feasibility as a service, on various types of constrained IoT devices that execute the Contiki-NG operating system. The proposed scheme can be used in two modes: (i) End-to-end when all communicating devices support the proposed compression scheme, and (ii) with the aim of a DTLS proxy for those that do not support it. The evaluation results show that the overhead in terms of static & dynamic memory utilization, and time for the compression/decompression to complete is minimal, while the energy consumption when compression is used, is significantly reduced.