On the Energy Cost of Post-Quantum Key Establishment in Wireless Low-Power Personal Area Networks

TL;DR

This paper investigates the energy costs of post-quantum key exchange in low-power wireless networks, revealing communication overhead as the main energy drain and proposing optimization strategies for quantum-safe protocols.

Contribution

It separates and quantifies computation and communication costs in PQKE on real hardware, highlighting the importance of communication optimization for energy efficiency.

Findings

Communication often exceeds cryptographic computation in energy cost.

Optimizing protocol configuration can significantly reduce energy consumption.

Provides a practical framework for developers to evaluate PQC energy trade-offs.

Abstract

Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) creates payloads that strain the timing and energy budgets of Personal Area Networks. In post-quantum key exchange (PQKE), this causes severe fragmentation, prolonged radio activity, and high transmission overhead on low-power devices. Prior work optimizes cryptographic computation but largely ignores communication cost. This paper separates computation and communication costs using Bluetooth Low Energy as a representative platform and validates them on real hardware. Results show communication often dominates PQKE energy, exceeding cryptographic cost. Efficient quantum-resilient pairing therefore requires coordinated protocol configuration and lower-layer optimization. This work provides developers a practical way to reason about PQC energy trade-offs and informs the evolution of PAN standards toward quantum-safe operation.