Protocol-Agnostic Compression for Resource-Constrained Wireless Networks

Reducing the time the radio is on in wireless devices results in lower power consumption, so sending the same data in fewer bytes can greatly extend the lifetime of a network. In this paper, we explore the use of protocol-agnostic packet compression, a technique orthogonal to current explicit compaction techniques. Because it functions as a transparent layer inside a communication stack and makes no assumption about the specific protocols used, it is generic enough to be used on multiple technologies. Compression is performed by identifying patterns in recent packets and replacing those patterns with bit flags in the transmitted packet. We present the results of compressing actual packet traces collected from several commercial networks using this algorithm and discuss the resource trade-offs of the algorithm. Results indicate compression ratios between 40% and 80%, yielding predicted energy savings of 30-70% in a typical time- synchronized network.