BOLT: A UDP-Based Bulk File Transfer Protocol with Application-Aware Rate Control

BOLT is a UDP-based file transfer protocol designed for single-flow bulk transfer between authenticated peers over high-latency, lossy links. The protocol combines a state-machine rate controller with explicit loss-cliff memory, compact packet framing, per-packet authenticated encryption with derived non-transmitted nonces, bitmap-based deduplication and resume, and platform-aware send paths. The paper evaluates BOLT against classic TCP, modern TCP, and PEP-accelerated TCP on the operating conditions of a deployed Patagonian meteorological station.