EDRaft: An Energy-Driven Consensus Protocol for Energy-Harvesting IoT Networks
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5753/jisa.2026.7926Keywords:
Energy-Harvesting, Consensus Algorithm, Raft Algorithm, Energy-Driven, Internet of ThingsAbstract
In resource-constrained IoT networks, limited battery capacity and intermittent energy sources necessitate consensus protocols capable of efficiently adapting to energy scarcity. However, standard consensus algorithms such as Raft are energy-agnostic, operating under the implicit assumption that all nodes have stable power supplies, risking the election of Leaders with critical energy levels and triggering frequent re-election cycles that accelerate network-wide depletion. To address this, we propose EDRaft, a phase-based, energy-driven evolution of Raft in which nodes continuously adjust their behavior, and the cluster's required majority, in response to real-time energy availability. We evaluate EDRaft against three baseline protocols, Raft, E-Raft, and Nakagawa's protocol, using a discrete-event simulator, across nine scenarios varying cluster size and client workload, under both non-harvesting and harvested energy conditions. EDRaft's Leader consistently outlasts its counterpart under the baseline protocols, by 9.8 to 40.8% under active workload and up to 78.7% when idle, translating into 44 to 115% higher request throughput at the network level.
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