Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) communications have recently entered a new period of interest, motivated by technological advances and the gradual emergence of the Space-Air-Ground Integrated Network (SAGIN). The current survey aims to capture the use of UAVs in the SAGIN while highlighting the most promising open research topics. The traditional UAV network architecture is not adequate to meet the challenges presented by the SAGIN, and an effective and secure space-air-ground integrated UAV network needs to be constructed. Given its well-distributed management and consensus mechanism, blockchain technology can make up for the deficiency of the traditional UAV network. In this work, we review the role of UAVs in the SAGIN. Then, three applications of the blockchain-envisioned UAV network are introduced through several classifications. Future challenges and the corresponding open research topics are also described.
Taras Maksymyuk, Marcel Vološin, Juraj Gazda, Madhusanka Liyanage
The paper presents a novel vision on the application of blockchain technology to empower the dynamic service provisioning in future 6G mobile networks. We propose a platform for decentralized service level agreement (SLA) negotiation between users and mobile network operators (MNOs) based on smart contracts and cryptocurrencies. In addition, the new quality of experience (QoE) model is proposed for end-users to customize their trade-off between SLA and service price. Finally, we develop the method of dynamic service selection among multiple MNOs that provides border-less connectivity for end-users with the guaranteed QoE regardless of the serving MNO.
This article reviews the 6G global landscape and the most relevant private and public initiatives, with US$ billions of investments in next generation information and communication (ICT) systems and application services. Then, it presents the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) technology roadmap towards 6G and 5G New Radio (NR) releases. This is followed by an introduction to the latest shift in paradigm “from Internet of Things (IoT) to Internet of Intelligence (IoI)”, which paves the way towards 6G wireless. The new system is anticipated to provide pervasive connectivity to functions with the ability to represent knowledge, process knowledge, and make decisions, with or without human intervention. Beyond that, the paper discusses the new carrier frequency bands above 110 GHz; and innovative fundamental enabling technologies, such as integrated semantic communication and sensing, low earth orbiting satellites, quantum key distribution, post quantum cryptography, and distributed ledger technology; and portrays a network vision for 6G wireless, looking to 2030 and beyond. Conclusions are drawn on 6G prospects, the needs of security by design for 6G; as well as the potential of 6G for securely connecting pervasive intelligence and preserving privacy; and new research directions to cater for new use categories and requirements.
Even though the wireless network of 5G has not been investigated exhaustively, the sixth generation (6G) echo systems’ visionaries are already being debated. Therefore, to solidify and consolidate privacy and security within 6G networks, this paper examines edge computing and its convergence with blockchain in 6G: security challenges. Moreover, the paper examines how security might affect the wireless systems of the 6G, potential obstacles characterizing various 6G technologies, alongside possible remedies. This paper unveils the 6G security vision alongside key indicators of performance with tentative landscape threat premised upon predicted sixth generation infrastructure. Furthermore, a discussion of the privacy and security challenges that might emerge from the existing sixth generation applications and demands is presented. Additionally, the paper sheds light into the research-level projects and standardization efforts. Specific attention is accorded to discussion on the security consideration with 6G enhancing technologies, including quantum computing, visible light communication (VLC), distributed ML/AI, physical layer security, and distributed ledger technology (DLT). Overall, this paper seeks to guide the subsequent investigation of sixth generation privacy and security in the early stage of envisioning to practicality.
The innovation provided by network virtualization in 5G, together with standardization and openness boosted by the Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) Alliance, has paved the way to a collaborative future in cellular systems, driven by flexible network sharing. Such advents are expected to attract new players like content providers and verticals, increasing competitiveness in the telecom market. However, scalability and trust issues are expected to arise, given the criticality of ownership traceability and resource exchanging in a sharing ecosystem. To address that, we propose integrating blockchain technology for enabling mobile operators and other players to exchange radio access network (RAN) resources (e.g., infrastructure) in the form of virtual network functions autonomously and dynamically. Blockchain will provide automation, robustness, trustworthiness, and reliability to mobile networks, thus bringing confidence to open RAN environments. In particular, we define a novel O-RAN-based blockchain-enabled architecture that allows automating RAN sharing procedures through either auction or marketplace-based mechanisms. The potential advantages of the proposed solution are demonstrated through simulation results. The used simulation platform is openly released.
Although the fifth generation wireless networks are yet to be fully investigated, the vision and key elements of the 6th generation (6G) ecosystem have already come into discussion. In order to contribute to these efforts and delineate the security and privacy aspects of 6G networks, we survey how security may impact the envisioned 6G wireless systems with the possible challenges and potential solutions. Especially, we discuss the security and privacy challenges that may emerge with the 6G requirements, novel network architecture, applications and enabling technologies including distributed ledger technologies, physical layer security, distributed artificial intelligence (AI)/ machine learning (ML), Visible Light Communication (VLC), THz bands, and quantum communication
Xiumei Deng, Jun Li, Chuan Ma, Kang Wei · 8 authors
The blockchain technology has been extensively studied to enable distributed and tamper-proof data processing in federated learning (FL). Most existing blockchain assisted FL (BFL) frameworks have employed a third-party blockchain network to decentralize the model aggregation process. However, decentralized model aggregation is vulnerable to pooling and collusion attacks from the third-party blockchain network. Driven by this issue, we propose a novel BFL framework that features the integration of training and mining at the client side. To optimize the learning performance of FL, we propose to maximize the long-term time average (LTA) training data size under a constraint of LTA energy consumption. To this end, we formulate a joint optimization problem of training client selection and resource allocation (i.e., the transmit power and computation frequency at the client side), and solve the long-term mixed integer non-linear programming based on a Lyapunov technique. In particular, the proposed dynamic resource allocation and client scheduling (DRACS) algorithm can achieve a trade-off of [$\mathcal{O}(1/V)$, $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{V})$] to balance the maximization of the LTA training data size and the minimization of the LTA energy consumption with a control parameter $V$. Our experimental results show that the proposed DRACS algorithm achieves better learning accuracy than benchmark client scheduling strategies with limited time or energy consumption.
Blockchain (BC) technology can revolutionize the future of communications by enabling decentralized and open sharing networks. In this paper, we propose the application of BC to facilitate Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and other players such as Verticals or Over-The-Top (OTT) service providers to exchange Radio Access Network (RAN) resources (e.g., infras-tructure, spectrum) in a secure, flexible and autonomous manner. In particular, we propose a BC-enabled reverse auction mecha-nism for RAN sharing and dynamic users' service provision in Beyond 5G networks, and we analyze its potential advantages with respect to current service provisioning and RAN sharing schemes. Moreover, we study the delay and overheads incurred by the BC in the whole process, when running over both wireless and wired interfaces.
The 5G wireless networks are potentially revolutionizing future technologies. The 5G technologies are expected to foresee demands of diverse vertical applications with diverse requirements including high traffic volume, massive connectivity, high quality of service, and low latency. To fulfill such requirements in 5G and beyond, new emerging technologies such as SDN, NFV, MEC, and CC are being deployed. However, these technologies raise several issues regarding transparency, decentralization, and reliability. Furthermore, 5G networks are expected to connect many heterogeneous devices and machines which will raise several security concerns regarding users' confidentiality, data privacy, and trustworthiness. To work seamlessly and securely in such scenarios, future 5G networks need to deploy smarter and more efficient security functions. Motivated by the aforementioned issues, blockchain was proposed by researchers to overcome 5G issues because of its capacities to ensure transparency, data reliability, trustworthiness, immutability in a distributed environment. Indeed, blockchain has gained momentum as a novel technology that gives rise to a plethora of new decentralized technologies. In this chapter, we discuss the integration of the blockchain with 5G networks and beyond. We then present how blockchain applications in 5G networks and beyond could facilitate enabling various services at the edge and the core.
With the deployment of fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks worldwide, research on sixth-generation (6G) wireless communications has commenced. It is expected that 6G networks can accommodate numerous heterogeneous devices and infrastructures with enhanced efficiency and security over diverse, e.g. spectrum, computing and storage, resources. However, this goal is impeded by a number of trust-related issues that are often neglected in network designs. Blockchain, as an innovative and revolutionary technology that has arisen in the recent decade, provides a promising solution. Building on its nature of decentralization, transparency, anonymity, immutability, traceability and resiliency, blockchain can establish cooperative trust among separate network entities and facilitate, e.g. efficient resource sharing, trusted data interaction, secure access control, privacy protection, and tracing, certification and supervision functionalities for wireless networks, thus presenting a new paradigm towards 6G. This paper is dedicated to blockchain-enabled wireless communication technologies. We first provide a brief introduction to the fundamentals of blockchain, and then we conduct a comprehensive investigation of the most recent efforts in incorporating blockchain into wireless communications from several aspects. Importantly, we further propose a unified framework of the blockchain radio access network (B-RAN) as a trustworthy and secure paradigm for 6G networking by utilizing blockchain technologies with enhanced efficiency and security. The critical elements of B-RAN, such as consensus mechanisms, smart contract, trustworthy access, mathematical modeling, cross-network sharing, data tracking and auditing and intelligent networking, are elaborated. We also provide the prototype design of B-RAN along with the latest experimental results.
In this article, we address the problem of prolonging the battery life of Internet of Things (IoT) nodes by introducing a smart energy harvesting framework for IoT networks supported by femtocell access points (FAPs) based on the principles of Contract Theory and Reinforcement Learning. Initially, the IoT nodes' social and physical characteristics are identified and captured through the concept of IoT node types. Then, Contract Theory is adopted to capture the interactions among the FAPs, who provide personalized rewards, i.e., charging power, to the IoT nodes to incentivize them to invest their effort, i.e., transmission power, to report their data to the FAPs. The IoT nodes' and FAPs' contract-theoretic utility functions are formulated, following the network economic concept of the involved entities' personalized profit. A contract-theoretic optimization problem is introduced to determine the optimal personalized contracts among each IoT node connected to a FAP, i.e., a pair of transmission and charging power, aiming to jointly guarantee the optimal satisfaction of all the involved entities in the examined IoT system. An artificial intelligent framework based on reinforcement learning is introduced to support the IoT nodes' autonomous association to the most beneficial FAP in terms of long-term gained rewards. Finally, a detailed simulation and comparative results are presented to show the pure operation performance of the proposed framework, as well as its drawbacks and benefits, compared to other approaches. Our findings show that the personalized contracts offered to the IoT nodes outperform by a factor of four compared to an agnostic type approach in terms of the achieved IoT system's social welfare.
We develop a new Lagrange coded blockchain model for Internet-of-Things (IoT) systems based on Lagrange coded computing (LCC). In the model, a mining task assigned to a blockchain node (BN) is encoded with a specific encoding function. Thus, the final result, i.e., newly generated block or block verification result, can be decoded even when only some mining outputs returned by BNs are correct, while other outputs are erroneous or discarded due to delays. To be decoded correctly, the number of mining outputs returned prior to decoding must be at least a given decoding threshold. Then, security against malicious BNs and resilience against stragglers can be guaranteed if the number of mining tasks allocated to BNs is not less than the sum of decoding threshold, number of stragglers, and double of the number of malicious BNs. Unlike other IoT blockchains and LCC-based methods showing enhanced throughput but yielding poor security, our model can improve throughput without compromising on security. This is achieved through optimized load allocations when the higher loads (two or more mining tasks) are allocated to the fastest BNs leading to: 1) increased number of mining outputs returned prior to decoding required to meet the decoding threshold and 2) increased number of allocated mining tasks to strengthen security and resilience. To overcome the limitation of our model related to higher loads and, hence, higher mining costs to BNs, we develop a contract-theoretic mechanism that incentivizes each BN to complete its mining task through joint load and transaction fee allocations.
Hao Xu, Zihan Zhou, Lei Zhang, Yunqing Sun · 5 authors
As 6G networks evolve towards a synergistic system of Communication, Sensing, and Computing, Radio Access Networks become more distributed, necessitating robust end-to-end authentication. We propose Blockchain-enabled Radio Access Networks, a novel decentralized RAN architecture enhancing security, privacy, and efficiency in authentication processes. BE-RAN leverages distributed ledger technology to establish trust, offering user-centric identity management, enabling mutual authentication, and facilitating on-demand point-to-point inter-network elements and UE-UE communication with accountable logging and billing service add-on for public network users, all without relying on centralized authorities. We envision a thoroughly decentralized RAN model and propose a privacy-preserving P2P communication approach that complements existing security measures while supporting the CSC paradigm. Results demonstrate BE-RAN significantly reduces communication and computation overheads, enhances privacy through decentralized identity management, and facilitates CSC integration, advancing towards more efficient and secure 6G networks.
Onel L. Alcaraz López, Hirley Alves, Richard Demo Souza, Samuel Montejo‐Sánchez · 6 authors
Recent advances on wireless energy transfer (WET) make it a promising solution for powering future Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices enabled by the upcoming sixth-generation (6G) era. The main architectures, challenges and techniques for efficient and scalable wireless powering are overviewed in this article. Candidates enablers, such as energy beamforming (EB), distributed antenna systems (DASs), advances on devices' hardware and programmable medium, new spectrum opportunities, resource scheduling, and distributed ledger technology are outlined. Special emphasis is placed on discussing the suitability of channel state information (CSI)-limited/free strategies when powering simultaneously a massive number of devices. The benefits from combining DAS and EB, and from using average CSI whenever available, are numerically illustrated. The pros and cons of the state-of-the-art CSI-free WET techniques in ultralow power setups are thoroughly revised, and some possible future enhancements are outlined. Finally, key research directions toward realizing WET-enabled massive IoT networks in the 6G era are identified and discussed in detail.
Tao Han, Igor de L. Ribeiro, Naércio Magaia, Joao Preto · 8 authors
Unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, are receiving growing research interest due to their ability to carry a multitude of sensors and to connect to mobile networks. They are also able to move freely across the air, which enables the creation of numerous applications that were until now considered impracticable. However, such applications may require high computational resources, reliable connection, and high data transmission rates to accomplish different tasks. Therefore, in this work, first, we discuss 5G communication networks and mobile edge computing (MEC) as promising technologies that can provide several benefits to drone-enabled environments and solve some of the presented issues. We also comment on 5G and MEC approaches, presenting the state of the art and seeking to solve each of the latter issues presented. Afterward, we introduce new security concerns of drone communication networks, given their recent popularity. These concerns are related to the possibility of malicious users taking advantage of this brand new technology, which has made many governments ban drones due to public safety. Next, blockchain technology is brought in as a novel solution to the security issues due to its decentralized nature, making it inherently safe. This article also surveys contributions that make use of each of the technologies mentioned to improve the emerging drone industry. Subsequently, we discuss open issues and future perspectives.
In the mid 2030-s in the field of defense and national security communications the quantum computers and 6G artificial intelligence will have domination. 6G communication is accepted in a variety of mobile data comparts transmitted through spectral technologies. The human body becomes a part of the 6G network architecture. A set of network nodes or wearable devices, embedded sensors or nanodes collect confidential information that is exchanged for multiple purposes, such as health, statistics, and safety. An important part of the 6G new paradigm will be intelligent reflective surfaces, quantum teleportation, quantum encrypted messaging, 6G holography, distributed ledger, 6G layer security threats. The 6G wireless standards will allow real-time time zone high-speed internet communication with 1TB data per second. The radio frequency networks, THZ communications, molecular communications, and quantum communications will dramatically improve data rates.
The digital content wave has proliferated the financial and industrial sectors. Moreover, with the rise of massive internet-of-things, and automation, technologies like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have emerged as prominent players to drive a range of applications. Currently, sixth-generation (6G) networks support enhanced holographic projection through terahertz (THz) bandwidths, ultra-low latency, and massive device connectivity. However, the data is exchanged between autonomous networks over untrusted channels. Thus, to ensure data security, privacy, and trust among stakeholders, blockchain (BC) opens new dimensions towards intelligent resource management, user access control, audibility, and chronology in stored transactions. Thus, the BC and 6G coalition in future AR/VR applications is an emerging investigative topic. To date, authors have proposed surveys that study the integration of BC and 6G in AR/VR in isolation, and hence a coherent survey is required. Thus, to address the gap, the survey is the first-of-its-kind to investigate and study the coalition of BC and 6G in AR/VR space. Based on the proposed research questions in the survey, a solution taxonomy is presented, and different verticals are studied in detail. Furthermore, an integrative architecture is proposed, and open issues and challenges are presented. Finally, a case study, BvTours, is presented that presents a unique survey on BC-based 6G-assisted AR/VR virtual home tour service. The survey intends to propose future resilient frameworks and architectures for different industry 4.0 verticals and would serve as starting directions for academia, industry stakeholders, and research organizations to study the coalition of BC and 6G in AR/VR in industrial applications, gaming, digital content manufacturing, and digital assets protection in greater detail.
Volker Ziegler, Peter Schneider, Harish Viswanathan, Michael Montag · 6 authors
A comprehensive set of security technology enablers will be critically required for communication systems for the 6G era of the 2030s. Trustworthiness must be assured across IoT, heterogenous cloud and networks, devices, sub-networks, and applications. The 6G threat vector will be defined by 6G architectural disaggregation, open interfaces and an environment with multiple stakeholders. Broadly decomposed into domains of cyber-resilience, privacy and trust and their respective intersection, we explore relevant security technology enablers including automated software creation and automated closed-loop security operation, privacy preserving technologies, hardware and cloud embedded anchors of trust, quantum-safe security, jamming protection and physical layer security as well as distributed ledger technologies. Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) as a key technology enabler will be pervasive and of pivotal relevance across the security technology stack and architecture. A novel vision for a trustworthy Secure Telecom Operation Map is developed as part of the automated closed loop operations paradigm.
Although the fifth generation (5G) wireless networks are yet to be fully investigated, the visionaries of the 6th generation (6G) echo systems have already come into the discussion. Therefore, in order to consolidate and solidify the security and privacy in 6G networks, we survey how security may impact the envisioned 6G wireless systems, possible challenges with different 6G technologies, and the potential solutions. We provide our vision on 6G security and security key performance indicators (KPIs) with the tentative threat landscape based on the foreseen 6G network architecture. Moreover, we discuss the security and privacy challenges that may encounter with the available 6G requirements and potential 6G applications. We also give the reader some insights into the standardization efforts and research-level projects relevant to 6G security. In particular, we discuss the security considerations with 6G enabling technologies such as distributed ledger technology (DLT), physical layer security, distributed AI/ML, visible light communication (VLC), THz, and quantum computing. All in all, this work intends to provide enlightening guidance for the subsequent research of 6G security and privacy at this initial phase of vision towards reality.
Sixth-generation (6G) mobile networks will have to cope with diverse threats on a space-air-ground integrated network environment, novel technologies, and an accessible user information explosion. However, for now, security and privacy issues for 6G remain largely in concept. This survey provides a systematic overview of security and privacy issues based on prospective technologies for 6G in the physical, connection, and service layers, as well as through lessons learned from the failures of existing security architectures and state-of-the-art defenses. Two key lessons learned are as follows. First, other than inheriting vulnerabilities from the previous generations, 6G has new threat vectors from new radio technologies, such as the exposed location of radio stripes in ultra-massive MIMO systems at Terahertz bands and attacks against pervasive intelligence. Second, physical layer protection, deep network slicing, quantum-safe communications, artificial intelligence (AI) security, platform-agnostic security, real-time adaptive security, and novel data protection mechanisms such as distributed ledgers and differential privacy are the top promising techniques to mitigate the attack magnitude and personal data breaches substantially.
Adaptive capacity with cost-efficient resource provisioning is a crucial capability for future 6G networks. In this work, we conceptualize "expansive networks" which refers to a networking paradigm where networks should be able to extend their resource base by opportunistic but self-controlled expansive actions. To this end, we elaborate on a key aspect of an expansive network as a concrete example: Spectrum resource at the PHY layer. Evidently, future wireless networks need to provide efficient mechanisms to coexist in the licensed and unlicensed bands and operate in expansive mode. In this work, we first describe spectrum sharing issues and possibilities in 6G networks for expansive networks. We then present security implications of expansive networks, an important concern due to more open and coupled systems in expansive networks. We also discuss two key enablers, namely distributed ledger technology (DLT) and network intelligence via machine learning, which are promising to realize expansive networks for the spectrum sharing aspect.
5G networks are expected to provide cost-efficient, reliable, and flexible services for industrial productions and applications potentially, by introducing emerging network technologies like blockchain and network functions virtualization (NFV), which virtualizes network functions and runs them on standard infrastructure rather than customized hardware. However, how to deal with the emerging security challenges and fulfil the requirement of ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC) has not been fully resolved. In this article, we present an NFV-enabled 5G paradigm for the industry with the guarantee of URLLC through service chain acceleration and dynamic blockchain-based spectrum resource sharing among a variety of industry applications running in NVF-based equipment. First, we elaborate the benefits and shortcomings of NFV for industry, by executing an industry application experiment in virtualized and nonvirtualized data center networks. Then, we illustrate an NFV-enabled 5G paradigm for URLLC in detail, with a special focus on the service chain acceleration and spectrum sharing built on NFV, blockchain, software-defined networking, and mobile edge computing. Finally, we establish a mathematical model to study the worst-cast transmission latency of NFV-enabled 5G with the input of the bursty traffic. The proposed model can be exploited to support the plan, management, and optimization of NFV-enabled 5G URLLC systems for industry.
Yulei Wu, Hong‐Ning Dai, Hao Wang, Kim‐Kwang Raymond Choo
5G-enabled drones have potential applications in a variety of both military and civilian settings (e.g., monitoring and tracking of individuals in demonstrations and/or enforcing of social / physical distancing during pandemics such as COVID-19). Such applications generally involve the collection and dissemination of (massive) data from the drones to remote data centres for storage and analysis, for example via 5G networks. Consequently, there are security and privacy considerations underpinning 5G-enabled drone communications. We posit the potential of leveraging blockchain to facilitate privacy preservation, and therefore in this article we will review existing blockchain-based solutions after introducing the architecture for 5G-enabled drone communications and blockchain. We will also review existing legislation and data privacy regulations that need to be considered in the design of blockchain-based solutions, as well as identifying potential challenges and open issues which will hopefully inform future research agenda.
Emanuele Di Pascale, Hamed Ahmadi, Linda Doyle, Irene Macaluso
Neutral Host Small Cell Providers (SCP) represent a key element of the 5G\nvision of ultra-dense mobile networks. However, current business models mostly\nfocus on multi-year agreements for large venues, such as stadiums and hotel\nchains. These business agreements are regulated through binding Service Level\nAgreements (SLAs), which tend to be too cumbersome and costly for smaller scale\nSCPs. As a result, the neutral host model does not scale up to its full\npotential. In this paper, we propose a framework to enable the participation of\nsmall- to medium-sized players in the cellular market as providers offering\nnetwork resources to Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). To this purpose, we\nreview the current and emerging spectrum and technology opportunities that SCPs\ncan use for neutral host deployments. We also propose the use of\nblockchain-enabled smart contracts as a simple and cost-efficient alternative\nto traditional SLAs for small-scale SCPs. To demonstrate this, we describe a\nproof of concept implementation of an Ethereum-based smart contract platform\nfor best-effort service between an SCP and an MNO. Our simulations on potential\nsmart contract-based deployments in city centre Dublin show that the received\nsignal strength in the considered area will increase by an average of $10$\npercent.\n