Blockchain-Enabled Safety-as-a-Service for Industrial IoT Applications

Abstract

The integration of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)-based technologies with the existing industrial manufacturing processes help to improve on-site safety of workers, reduce downtime of machines, improve productivity rate, and minimize near-miss incidents and casualties. However, a prior intimation of the various safety-related information may minimize the probability of accidents on the factory floor and casualty rates. Typically, the safety-as-a-service (Safe-aaS) infrastructure provides customized safety-related decisions to the registered end-users. However, there exist certain problems associated with the privacy of the information provided by the end-users during registration, decision parameters requested by the end-users, and data sensed by the sensor nodes. In this work, we provide an architecture of Blockchain integration into the Safe-aaS infrastructure. Additionally, we discuss the implementation and management of the Blockchain-enabled Safe-aaS architecture. Extensive analytical results demonstrate that the profit of the safety service provider (SSP) improves with the adoption of blockchain technology into the Safe-aaS architecture. On the other hand, the overall throughput in our proposed architecture follows an increasing trend, with the increase in the number of decisions successfully delivered. Additionally, the throughput decreases with the increase in the number of registered end-users.