An AoI-Aware Data Transmission Algorithm in Blockchain-Based Intelligent Healthcare Systems

Abstract

The development of Sixth Generation (6G) communication technology plays a pivotal role in emerging intelligent healthcare applications. However, the vast amount of data not only occupies channel resources but also poses challenges to the timeliness and security of remote medical treatment. This paper constructs a remote intelligent healthcare system based on blockchain, aiming to achieve the minimum Age of Information (AoI) and energy consumption of medical data transmission while ensuring the security of intelligent healthcare data. Our system contains two layers: the Sensing Communication Layer (SenCom-Layer) and the Blockchain Layer (BlockC-Layer). In SenCom-Layer, we propose an Energy-aware Whittle Index-based Algorithm (EWIA), which obtains the optimal scheduling strategy for medical data by solving a relaxed Restless Combinatorial Multi-Armed Bandit (RCMAB) problem. In BlockC-Layer, considering both the dual utility of block nodes and the system, we introduce an Energy-efficient DPoS-based cooperative game, which achieves Nash equilibrium through Nash bargaining among the two utilities. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated through experiments in terms of security and energy consumption.