Edge-Enabled Blockchain-Based V2X Scheme for Secure Communication Within the Smart City Development

Abstract

As the high mobility nature of the vehicles results in frequent leaving and joining the transportation network, real-time data must be collected and shared in a timely manner. In such a transportation network, malicious vehicles can disrupt services and create serious issues, such as deadlocks and accidents. The blockchain is a technology that ensures traceability, consistency, and security in transportation networks. In this study, we integrated edge computing and blockchain technology to improve the optimal utilization of resources, especially in terms of computing, communication, security, and storage. We propose a novel, edge-integrated, blockchain-based vehicle platoon security scheme. For the vehicle platoon, we developed the security architecture, implemented smart contracts for practical network scenarios in NS-3, and integrated them with the SUMO TraCI API. We exhaustively simulated all the scenarios and analyzed the communication performance metrics, such as throughput, delay, and jitter, and the security performance metrics, such as mean squared error, communication, and computational cost. The performance results demonstrate that the developed scheme can solve security-related issues more effectively and efficiently in smart cities.