Testing TLS 1.3 PQC on constrained devices and microcontrollers

Overview & Synopsis

The UK, EU and US governments have set timelines for post-quantum cryptography migration of critical systems, with deadlines ranging from 2028 to 2035. This paper focuses on IoT-class devices and microcontrollers and the viability of using PQC to connect these devices in secure TLS 1.3 connections. Using wolfSSL, we benchmark a 36-combination TLS 1.3 algorithm matrix, pairing ML-KEM-512/768/1024 and X25519/ECC P-256 key exchange with ML-DSA-44/65/87, Ed25519, ECDSA, and RSA-PSS authentication, across four devices (Raspberry Pi Pico W & Pico 2 W, ESP32, and a Raspberry Pi Zero), measuring both handshake latency and energy consumption. We found that in capable devices, all choices in the TLS matrix gave similar results, but that in IoT-class devices, PQC performance is highly implementation- and architecture-dependent: the common assumption that elliptic-curve key exchange must be cheaper than post-quantum lattice-based key exchange does not hold in this wolfSSL-based implementation, where the best full-PQC combination (ML-KEM-512 + ML-DSA-44) completes TLS handshakes 41% faster than the equivalent classical-modern pairing (X25519 + RSA-PSS) on the Pico W (up to 2.12x as energy-efficient, depending on the paired authentication algorithm), and 8.9x faster on the ESP32. Full-PQC, ML-KEM-512/ML-DSA-44, is not only possible but energy-competitive with or superior to Hybrid or Elliptic Curve alternatives on the most constrained devices, though ML-DSA's variable signing time means applications with strict latency-predictability budgets must accept this variance as the cost of full quantum-safe authentication. We further show that the IETF's draft-specified X25519+ML-KEM-768 hybrid incurs approximately the combined cost of its two components, rather than offering a performance compromise, making pure ML-KEM the more practical choice on hardware lacking Curve25519 assembly support.