Blockchain-enabled Internet of Things (IoTs) platforms for vehicle sensing and transportation monitoring

Abstract

Technical evolution of Internet of Things (IoTs) shifts its power, storage, and computational capabilities away from centralized cloud platforms to a decentralized IoT edge. Traditional security policies may not be effective against modification attacks, eavesdropping, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) because of large attack surface area in IoT where devices cannot have their own ID and cannot keep their privacy and resiliency to the cyber-attacks. Blockchain can support secure, transparent, immutable data and computation-intensive applications such as services for factory automation, assisted living and automotive driving, transportation monitoring and vehicular networks. In addition, for facilitating blockchain applications at low-power mobile IoT systems, mobile edge computing (MEC) can be a convenient alternative for solving consensus protocols for mobile IoT users (offloading to MEC providers).In this chapter, blockchain-enabled IoT platforms and solutions for vehicle sensing and transportation monitoring from various aspects are investigated. After providing a more general background, we consider vehicular networks and blockchain applications. In a typical vehicular network, a large number of vehicles need ultra-reliable, low-latency communications and secure, transparent, immutable data sharing to avoid multiple-vehicle collisions. Therefore, we consider blockchain applications in vehicular networks for more scalable, transparent, and secure Internet of Vehicles (IoV). In addition, we consider cybersecurity issues in Internet of Drones (IoD) and unmanned traffic monitoring (UTM) systems and then provide the existing blockchain-based solutions/platforms for these problems.With 5G of mobile broadband systems, blockchain needs to deal with scalability problems due to a very large number of users in IoV. Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques can be applied with blockchain in connected vehicles in this manner. Implementing AI techniques can provide more scalable, transparent, and secure blockchain applications in vehicular networks. AI techniques also help blockchain achieve privacy and personalization for the users in IoV at the same time. In the sequel, we consider more lightweight protocols for more scalable blockchains. Moreover, we consider the solutions of game-theoretic models to jointly maximize the profit of the MEC service provider and the individual utilities of the miners. Then, we can consider resource-provision problems under different pricing schemes offered by MEC service providers. Finally, we conclude the chapter.