Secure RIS-enabled blockchain-assisted task co-offloading in D2D-MEC networks for industrial IoT: a federated learning approach

Abstract

Industry 4.0 is evolving rapidly, 6G networks are emerging, and this has led to a dramatic increase in ultra-latency-critical, computationally demanding jobs in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) environments such as real-time digital twins, collaborative robots, and augmented reality-guided assembly. However, the conventional D2D-assisted mobile edge computing (MEC) systems suffer from the severe performance degradation due to the harsh factory propagation environment, severe security threats on the open D2D links, strict industrial data privacy requirements, selfish resource sharing behaviour, and frequent service migration due to device mobility. In this research, we propose a holistic secure task co-offloading system that integrates Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS), permissioned blockchain with smart contracts, and federated learning, into an integrated D2D-MEC architecture for the IIoT. A federated secure multi-armed bandit algorithm enables privacy-preserving decentralized decision-making without revealing sensitive industrial data. Blockchain records off-load transactions through immutable ledgers and enables smart-contract-based incentive enforcement. RIS renders unreliable wireless channels dynamic with minimum energy overhead. In scenarios with hostile and imprecise information, the collaborative design can lower the long-term cost of the system, including task latency, energy consumption, migration overhead, and blockchain transaction fees. The proposed framework, compared to state-of-the-art baselines, reduces the average job completion latency by 29.6%, energy consumption by 36.8%, and migration cost by 41.2%, as demonstrated by extensive trace-driven simulations in actual 6G-IIoT manufacturing scenarios. The experimental results also show the robust performance under the simulated willingness manipulation and poisoned federated updates. The permissioned blockchain architecture provides the architectural security against the Sybil attack and other trust-related threats.