Abstract
Global air transport carries about 4.3 billion pieces of baggage each year, and up to 56 percent of travellers prefer obtaining real-time baggage tracking information throughout their trip. However, the traditional baggage tracking scheme is generally based on optical scanning and centralized storage systems, which suffers from low efficiency and information leakage. In this paper, a blockchain and edge computing-based Internet of Things (IoT) system for tracking of airport baggage (BEI-TAB) is proposed. Through the combination of radio frequency identification technology (RFID) and blockchain, real-time baggage processing information is automatically stored in blockchain. In addition, we deploy Interplanetary File System (IPFS) at edge nodes with ciphertext policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE) to store basic baggage information. Only hash values returned by the IPFS network are kept in blockchain, enhancing the scalability of the system. Furthermore, a multichannel scheme is designed to realize the physical isolation of data and to rapidly process multiple types of data and business requirements in parallel. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first architecture that integrates RFID, IPFS, and CP-ABE with blockchain technologies to facilitate secure, decentralized, and real-time characteristics for storing and sharing data for baggage tracking. We have deployed a testbed with both software and hardware to evaluate the proposed system, considering the performances of transaction processing time and speed. In addition, based on the characteristics of consortium blockchain, we improved the practical Byzantine fault tolerance (PBFT) consensus protocol, which introduced the node credit score mechanism and cooperated with the simplified consistency protocol. Experimental results show that the credit score-based PBFT consensus (CSPBFT) can shorten transaction delay and improve the long-term running efficiency of the system.
Highlights
According to the latest data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), global air transport carries about 4.3 billion pieces of baggage every year [1]
Consortium blockchain can guarantee the security of data, but its scalability is challenged in the face of hundreds of millions of baggage [5], so we introduced Interplanetary File System (IPFS) in our system
(4) The integration of IPFS and blockchain realizes the storage of encrypted basic baggage information in the IPFS network, while only the IPFS address hash is stored in blockchain, which increases the scalability of the blockchain system
Summary
According to the latest data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), global air transport carries about 4.3 billion pieces of baggage every year [1]. (1) The application of blockchain in baggage tracking reduces the degree of data leakage and enhances the privacy and security of data through utilizing the features of nontampering of blockchain and authorized access of consortium blockchain (2) The multichannel design enables the airport to process multiple types of data and business requirements in parallel and rapidly, providing coarse-grained privacy protection and promotes information sharing It realizes the physical isolation of data and further ensures the confidentiality of transmission (3) By combining RFID with the blockchain, the real-time baggage processing information is automatically stored in the blockchain, which effectively saves the labor cost as well as guarantees the safety of data transmission and improves the degree of informatization (4) The integration of IPFS and blockchain realizes the storage of encrypted basic baggage information in the IPFS network, while only the IPFS address hash is stored in blockchain, which increases the scalability of the blockchain system. The node credit score mechanism effectively identifies and excludes Byzantine nodes in the system, so that the algorithm can execute the simplified consistency protocol most of time, improving the longterm operation efficiency of the system
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