A blockchain-based scheme for edge–edge collaboration management in time-sensitive networking

Abstract

Edge–edge collaboration is the main collaboration mode for edge computing (EC) in time-sensitive networking (TSN). This distributed collaboration mode, in which the computing work is implemented collaboratively by the edge computing nodes (ECNs) without the involvement of cloud servers, poses challenges to collaboration management. However, most existing methods of ECN collaboration only focus on the scheduling of computing resources rather than management process design and rarely consider the transparency, security, and fair distribution guarantee mechanism of collaboration benefits. To address this issue, we propose a blockchain-based and decentralized management scheme for ECNs autonomous collaboration in TSN. First, we design an edge–edge collaboration management framework and its workflow based on blockchain for EC in TSN (TECChain), which combines blockchain with TSN technology and EC paradigm. To solve the consensus problem in TECChain, the proof of diligence (PoD) and delegated PoD (DPoD) consensus mechanisms are designed. Furthermore, by leveraging the high-precision synchronous clock foundation of TSN, we propose two time-slot-driven consensus algorithms, named sequential decision-making based on DPoD (S-DPoD) and Byzantine fault tolerance based on DPoD (BFT-DPoD) respectively. Theoretical analysis results show that the proposed algorithms perform better in terms of security, transactions per second (TPS), energy saving, etc., compared to other algorithms. Comparison experiments reveal that S-DPoD consumes fewer interactive messages and has higher Byzantine fault tolerance and success rate of consensus than BFT-DPoD, but BFT-DPoD has lower transaction verification latency and larger TPS.