A Cross-Chain Interoperability Architecture for Smart City Environments

Abstract

Blockchains have become quintessential for cutting-edge technology demands in the world. This trend will only continue to increase in the future. Looking at all modern technologies that seem to move towards decentralized architecture, blockchain and distributed ledger technology fit perfectly. In times of conventional database-orientated systems, modern frameworks made huge developments when application programming interfaces (APIs) and data were used cross-platform between centralized entities. A natural evolution for blockchain technology would be to enable communication and data exchange between blockchains (ie. both private and public). This could help not only digitize but could also set in a revolution for digital record-keeping that can be used for automation in the future. Our research work enables and tests interoperability between blockchains in different real-world scenarios. The research work also tries to understand various elements of a smart city environment and a few use-cases are discussed and experimented on.