ORCID

0009-0006-4229-1864

Keywords

CHRIP, Decentralized IoT Communication, ESP-NOW, Firefly Synchronization, Embedded Systems, Peer-to-Peer Networking

Abstract

This work presents the implementation and experimental evaluation of the CHIRP communication algorithm on resource-constrained ESP32-S3 microcontrollers, bridging the gap between simulation-based validation and real-world deployment. CHIRP is a lightweight, fully decentralized peer-to-peer protocol designed for IoT networks with dynamic node membership, enabling runtime node join and leave operations without centralized coordination or global reconfiguration. The implementation comprises two main components: C-based node firmware running on FreeRTOS [1, 2], which implements the full CHIRP protocol including peer discovery, round-robin pairing, and firefly-inspired phase synchronization, and a Python-based experiment controller that orchestrates network experiments and collects per-node metrics without influencing protocol behavior. ESP-NOW was selected as the underlying communication protocol, providing the connectionless, low-latency, peer-to-peer messaging that CHIRP requires. Experimental results confirm that nodes can join and leave the network reliably at any point during operation without disrupting existing members. The synchronization mechanism successfully brings nodes into phase alignment without centralized coordination, with the network converging to a stable synchronized state within the first few minutes of operation under real hardware conditions. Incremental network growth was observed to have minimal impact on existing synchronized members, though node rejoin events were found to introduce temporary synchronization disruptions that the network recovers from over time. This work establishes a validated experimental platform for CHIRP research, providing both the firmware infrastructure for protocol execution and reproducible tooling for evaluating network behavior under real-world conditions.

Completion Date

2026

Semester

Spring

Committee Chair

Borowczak, Mike

Degree

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Department

ECE

Document Type

Thesis

Identifier

DP0053208

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