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Karam Eddine Bilami, Jaafar Gaber, Pascal Lorenz, Azeddine Bilami
No abstract is available for this record.
Edison Andres Arteaga Lopez, Gustavo Ramírez-González, Andrea Sabbioni, Carlos A. Astudillo
Abstract Distributed ledger technologies (DLT) can enhance trust and auditability in the Internet of Things (IoT). Among them, IOTA has been specifically designed to support machine-to-machine interactions and IoT data anchoring through scalable DLT architectures. However, their integration with Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWANs) remains limited due to device constraints, strict timing requirements, and the operational costs of on-chain transactions. The transition from the fee-less Stardust to the fee-based IOTA Rebased model introduces explicit transaction costs, questioning the viability of continuous IoT data anchoring. IOTA provides a suitable platform to examine the challenges of integrating distributed ledger technologies with LPWAN-based IoT systems. Its transition to a fee-based execution model raises important questions regarding cost predictability and performance in continuous data anchoring scenarios, particularly under the constraints of resource-limited and latency-sensitive environments. This article investigates the practicality of the execution and payment model introduced by IOTA Rebased for IoT scenarios requiring continuous data notarization. We provide an empirical evaluation of continuous IoT data notarization on the public IOTA Rebased Mainnet and characterize the performance implications on edge-oriented deployments, including resource-constrained and resource-rich devices. We implement a notarization oracle that ingests LoRaWAN uplinks from The Things Network (TTN), canonicalizes payloads, generates SHA-256 commitments, and records them on-chain through reusable notarization objects. The oracle enables continuous anchoring of IoT telemetry while minimizing transaction overhead through object reuse. Two 24-h experimental campaigns compare a notarization oracle on resource-constrained and resource-rich hardware under periodic workloads. Results show consistent steady-state gas consumption for UPDATE operations, indicating that object reuse enables stable on-chain cost behavior in IOTA Rebased regardless of the deployment platform. From a performance perspective, both environments achieve stable execution; however, the resource-constrained edge deployment exhibits higher median and tail latency, alongside tighter memory margins compared to the resource-rich centralized baseline. These findings confirm the feasibility of deploying notarization services on constrained edge infrastructure under the new fee-based model.
Ravi Kumar Munaganuri, Yamarthi Narasimha Rao, Sai Chandana Bolem
This research is anchored on the burning need for irrigation optimization and crop water use efficiency improvement, which remains a challenge in smart agriculture processes. Traditional irrigation methods normally lead to inefficiency, resulting in wasted water and non-maximum crops. These traditional ways normally lack attributes of real-time adaptability and secure data management—things that are very key to modernizing agricultural practices. In this work, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and blockchain techniques will be integrated to design a comprehensive system for monitoring and predicting soil moisture levels. In the proposed model, long short-term memory (LSTM) networks are considered for soil moisture level prediction, taking into consideration past data, weather, and crop type. LSTM networks are chosen here for their high performance in timestamp series prediction tasks with an mean average error (MAE) of 0.02 m 3 /m 3 over a 7-day forecast horizon. For real-time monitoring, IoT sensors based on long range wide area network (LoRaWAN) technology are field-deployed for conducting long-range communications while consuming very limited energy to extend the sensor battery life over 5 years and bring down the data transmission latency below 5 s. It has an inbuilt permissioned blockchain framework—Hyperledger Fabric—which offers a secure and transparent system for data management and maintaining a record of soil moisture data, irrigation events, and metadata from sensors. This ensures the immutability and integrity of sets of data. Smart contracts automate irrigation upon reaching preconfigured soil moisture thresholds, and hence zero data integrity breaches occur with a transaction throughput of 1,000 transactions per second, taken into view with smart contract execution latency of less than 2 s. Moreover, it utilizes reinforcement learning with Deep Q-Learning to derive an optimized irrigation schedule. In this regard, it enables learning optimal irrigation policies and implements them to improve efficiency in the usage of water by 25% and increases crop yield by 15% compared to the traditional methods. Clearly from field trials, results indicate evident efficiency of the integrated system: a 20% water usage reduction and a 12% increase in crop yield within one growing season. This is rather an innovative take on irrigation practices, increasing a great deal of accuracy and sustainability for such and providing a really strong solution toward better agricultural productivity and resource management.
Tehseen Mazhar, Syed Faisal Abbas Shah, Syed Azeem Inam, Joseph Bamidele Awotunde · 6 authors
The incorporation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the fields of Neurosurgery and Neurology has transformed the landscape of the healthcare industry. The present study describes seven dimensions of AI that have transformed the way of providing care, diagnosing, and treating patients. It has exhibited unparalleled accuracy in analyzing complex medical imaging data and expediting precise diagnoses of neurological conditions. It has also enabled personalized treatment plans by harnessing patient-specific data and genetic information, promising more effective therapies. For instance, AI-powered surgical robots have brought precision and remote capabilities to neurosurgical procedures, reducing human error. In AI, machine learning models predict disease progression, optimizing resource allocation and patient care, whereas wearable devices with AI provide continuous neurological monitoring, and enable early intervention for chronic conditions. It has also accelerated drug discovery by analyzing vast datasets, potentially leading to breakthrough therapies. Chatbots and virtual assistants powered by AI, enhance patient engagement and adherence to treatment plans. It holds promise in further personalization of care, augmented decision-making, earlier intervention, and the development of groundbreaking treatments. The present study mainly focuses on the incorporation of blockchain technology and provides a reasonable understanding of the associated issues and challenges along with its solutions. It will allow AI and healthcare professionals to advance the field and contribute towards the improvement of an individual's well-being when facing neurological challenges.
J. Gissing, Carsten Brockmann
In wireless sensor networks (WSN), a large share of the energy demand arises from wireless communication, especially in wide area networks where transmission distances are at the scale of kilometers.Ensuring reliability of communication links while optimizing energy demand requires heterogeneous radio configurations throughout the network demanding for an automated process for identifying suitable transceiver settings in order to mitigate the effort of manual configuration during deployment.Furthermore, wireless links are susceptible to dynamic influences such as environmental conditions and interference from concurrent channel usage, rendering static radio configuration impractical.Therefore, autonomous organization and self-configuration of wireless communication networks, such as transmission parameter optimization, drastically reduce cost and effort for installation and maintenance of large-scale sensor systems.Such dynamic adaptive behavior can be achieved by local execution of decentralized methods that enable decision-making at the network edge, while also inherently offering advantages such as enhanced system robustness and scalability.In this work, we present a method that exemplifies this approach and experimentally evaluate its performance on real hardware.The adaptive algorithm optimizes the transmitter configuration of a LoRa transceiver by employing a model-free reinforcement learning approach based on an actor-critic setup using a parameterized stochastic policy and state-value function approximation.Experimental results show that the approach surpasses a standard approach in terms of long-term energy demand.Furthermore, the method's capability of adapting to dynamic wireless channels is demonstrated.
Sergey Khvan, Refik Çağlar Kızılırmak, Mehdi Shafiee
The integration of blockchain and IoT presents tremendous potential for unlocking new opportunities and capabilities. With additive decentralized features, businesses and individuals can benefit from increased security, transparency, and efficiency in various applications. This chapter first presents the technical aspects of this integration, including the role of smart contracts in decentralized IoT systems and how blockchain enhances the security, stability, and transparency of IoT networks. Then, a step-by-step tutorial for developing smart contracts and ledger on Ethereum blockchain is presented, particularly from the perspective of IoT nodes. The considered scenario is for an IoT device that writes/retrieves data from the blockchain; however, the presented methodology can easily be extended for different use cases.
Steve Kerrison, Jusak Jusak, Tao Huang
Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchains are enabling technologies for modern healthcare applications, offering the improved monitoring of patient health and higher data integrity guarantees. However, in rural settings, communication reliability can pose a challenge that constrains real-time data usage. Additionally, the limited computation and communication resources of IoT sensors also means that they may not participate directly in blockchain transactions, reducing trust. This paper proposes a solution to these challenges, enabling the use of blockchain-based IoT healthcare devices in low-bandwidth rural areas. This integrated system, named hybrid channel healthcare chain (HC2), uses two communication channels: short-range communication for device authorisation and bulk data transfer, and long-range the radio for light-weight monitoring and event notifications. Both channels leverage the same cryptographic identity information, and through the use of a cloud-based digital twin, the IoT device is able to sign its own transactions, without disclosing the key to said twin. Patient data are encrypted end to end between the IoT device and data store, with the blockchain providing a reliable record of the data lifecycle. We contribute a model, analytic evaluation and proof of concept for the HC2 system that demonstrates its suitability for the stated scenarios by reducing the number of long-range radio packets needed by 87× compared to a conventional approach.
Pedro Vílchez, Saulo Jacques, Fèlix Freitag, Roc Meseguer
Environmental monitoring is a growing application of the Internet of Things. The low cost of the sensor nodes, LoRa connectivity, and increased awareness of environmental issues have motivated many citizens to participate in open IoT monitoring applications. However, the value of these applications for decision makers is limited since the data from the IoT sensors do not have sufficient guarantees to be trusted. In this paper, we introduce a new concept that attributes value to both IoT data and devices, such as sensor nodes and gateways, and leverage distributed ledger technology to enable a data trust system. A first design decision was to assign Ethereum addresses with their associated public and private key pairs to all actors. This allows the authentication of data senders and hence the accounting for the contribution of each participant. Secondly, we introduce an auditor to validate the received IoT data. The results of these audits increase the trust in the quality of the data. We present the architectural components that we designed to enhance trust in open IoT monitoring applications and present an operational prototype to show the feasibility of the implementation. By achieving both trust in the data and accounting of contributions for giving rewards, open participatory IoT monitoring applications can become both valuable and sustainable. Then, trusted open monitoring may complement commercial solutions as a technical and economic alternative for addressing the increasing environmental monitoring needs of our society.
Raimir Holanda Filho, Débora Carla Barboza de Sousa, Wellington Alves de Brito, Joan Lucas Marques de Sousa Chaves · 6 authors
Solid waste management is one of the problems that has gained greater prominence in recent years. This topic has been discussed with greater emphasis in conjunction with environmental issues, driven by changes in the most diverse fields provided by the recent post-pandemic scenario. However, due to traditional or inefficient waste management approaches, most trash bins placed in cities can be seen as overflowing. Therefore, a remote monitoring system is needed to alert the level of garbage in bins to the relevant authority for waste clearance. In this scenario, the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm plays a vital role in improving smart city applications by tracking and managing city processes. This paper implements a solution based on Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) and blockchain technologies to provide the required data available for increasing efficiency in solid waste collection. Finally, this paper provides an evaluation of the proposed architecture related to latency and throughput metrics.
Li Wang, Yuhang Zheng, Yu Zhang, Feng Li
No abstract is available for this record.
Md. Shahjalal, Md. Mainul Islam, Md Morshed Alam, Yeong Min Jang
Low-power, low-cost, and long-range connectivity for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) networks are the key stipulations, nowadays. However, implementing a cost-effective, flexible, and feasible system considering server and networking security is still an open challenge. In this article, a complete end-to-end long-range wide area network (LoRaWAN) system has been demonstrated by implementing blockchain-based secure distributed data management, which is applicable in various secure IIoT applications. Dynamic data collected by multiple LoRa sensors are encrypted in a LoRa server, and the encrypted content is automatically stored in the InterPlanetary file system (IPFS) to ensure data confidentiality, integrity, and availability. To achieve data consistency, the content IDs collected from the IPFS are stored in the quorum blockchain with consortium setup using a smart contract. The consortium network is maintained by the Raft consensus algorithm employing seven nodes. The design architecture of the hardware used for both LoRa transmitting node and gateway has been described in comprehensive manners. The performance of the LoRaWAN system is analyzed by the received signal strength indicator, the communications range, and packet loss rate metrics in both line-of-sight and nonline-of-sight test systems. The data management scheme is implemented in Python, and the performance is evaluated in terms of transaction time and block size.
P.G. Giardina G. Bernini
This document presents the final design of the 5GZORRO high-level architecture, which targets the achievement and implementation of the innovative 5G networks and services vision described above. More specifically, this deliverable is intended as a self-contained document, which merges the original content of deliverables D2.2 and D2.3 (that present the initial and the updated 5GZORRO high-level architecture respectively) and further improves them to align the 5GZORRO architecture functionalities with the feedback from the platform implementation undergoing in WP3 and WP4. With this document, the goal is to have a single source of information for the 5GZORRO high-level architecture, which includes the whole set of services offered, functionalities supported, and operational workflows implemented.<br> In practice, in alignment with the original approach proposed and described in D2.2 and D2.3, the architecture follows a principle of service-based architecture, similar to the 5G Service-based architecture defined in 3GPP and in the ETSI Zero touch network and Service Management. Integrating SDN/NFV and Cloud native orchestration technologies with a Permissioned Distributed Ledger infrastructure, the 5GZORRO architecture offers services for:<br> • cross-domain network slicing,<br> • resource and service offering via marketplaces,<br> • discovery, intelligent selection and trading of resources and Services via Smart Contracts<br> • zero-touch network slice and service lifecycle management<br> • cross-stakeholder e-license management<br> • SLA monitoring & breach prediction<br> • security and trust across multiple domains.<br> The realization of these services is made possible through the interaction of various functions for slice orchestration, network intelligence and analytics, security and trust, management of virtualized resources, all executed for multi-domain and single domain scopes. Moreover, 5GZORRO leverages many state-of-the-art technologies and standards for virtualization, NFV, Cloud Native platforms and services, zero touch, SDN, distributed ledgers, data lakes, which have been extensively reviewed to summarise the specific positioning of the 5GZORRO innovative proposition.
Bouthaina Dammak, Mariem Turki, Saoussen Cheikhrouhou, Mouna Baklouti · 6 authors
Over the past several years, the adoption of HealthCare Monitoring Systems (HCS) in health centers and organizations like hospitals or eldery homes growth significantly. The adoption of such systems is revolutionized by a propelling advancements in IoT and Blockchain technologies. Owing to technological advancement in IoT sensors market, innovations in HCS to monitor patients health status have motivated many countries to strength their efforts to support their citizens with such care delivery systems under the directives of a physician who has access to patient's data. Nevertheless, secure data sharing is a principal patient's concern to be comfort to use such systems. Current HCS are not able to provide reassuring security policies. For that, one of our focus in this work, is to provide security countermeasures, likewise cost-efficient solution for HCS by integrating storage model based on Blockchain and Interplanetary File Systems (IPFS). Blockchain technology is an emerging solution in pharmaceutical industry and starts to take place for HCS and allows HealthCare providers to track connected devices and control access to shared data, hence protecting patients' privacy. Furthermore, the addition of Edge and Fog computing has improved HCS to react in real-time and enhance their reliability. A variety of communication protocols can connect sensor devices to edge/Fog layer and the best choice will depend upon connectivity requirements: range, bandwidth, power, interoperability, security, and reliability. Instead, systems efficiency would decline and hurt if communication protocol is inconsistent. LoRa (Long Range) communications technology is emerging as the leader among Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWANs) entering the IoT domain benefiting from many features such as long-range distances and low power consumption. This work proposes LoRaChainCare, an architecture model for HCS which combines the technologies Blockchain, Fog/Edge computing, and the LoRa communication protocol. A real implementation of LoRaChainCare system is presented and evaluated in terms of cost, run time and power consumption.
Lorenzo Gigli, Luca Sciullo, Federico Montori, Alessandro Marzani · 5 authors
Interoperable and secure data management techniques are fundamental for most of large-scale Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems. Indeed, given the relevance of SHM critical measurements, data integrity must be protected against tampering or falsifications. In this paper, we propose a four-layer SHM architecture that allows to build an effective data pipeline from sensors to consumer applications, passing through the cloud. The architecture is built on top of the MODRON platform and exploits the recent advances of the W3C Web of Things (WoT) standard for interoperability. We then discuss how third-party services can take benefit of the W3C WoT architecture to retrieve the SHM critical data and to publish them on the Ethereum Blockchain through an SHM-specific Smart Contract, for data protection and traceability purposes. We test the effectiveness of the Smart Contract implementation in terms of latency and costs under simulated workloads.
Njabulo S. Mtetwa, Paul Tarwireyi, Cecilia Nombuso Sibeko, Adnan M. Abu‐Mahfouz · 5 authors
The Internet of Things (IoT) is changing the way consumers, businesses, and governments interact with the physical and cyber worlds. More often than not, IoT devices are designed for specific functional requirements or use cases without paying too much attention to security. Consequently, attackers usually compromise IoT devices with lax security to retrieve sensitive information such as encryption keys, user passwords, and sensitive URLs. Moreover, expanding IoT use cases and the exponential growth in connected smart devices significantly widen the attack surface. Despite efforts to deal with security problems, the security of IoT devices and the privacy of the data they collect and process are still areas of concern in research. Whenever vulnerabilities are discovered, device manufacturers are expected to release patches or new firmware to fix the vulnerabilities. There is a need to prioritize firmware attacks, because they enable the most high-impact threats that go beyond what is possible with traditional attacks. In IoT, delivering and deploying new firmware securely to affected devices remains a challenge. This study aims to develop a security model that employs Blockchain and the InterPlanentary File System (IPFS) to secure firmware transmission over a low data rate, constrained Long-Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN). The proposed security model ensures integrity, confidentiality, availability, and authentication and focuses on resource-constrained low-powered devices. To demonstrate the utility and applicability of the proposed model, a proof of concept was implemented and evaluated using low-powered devices. The experimental results show that the proposed model is feasible for constrained and low-powered LoRaWAN devices.
Victor Pasknel de Alencar Ribeiro, Raimir Holanda Filho, Alex Ramos, Joel J. P. C. Rodrigues
Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) is a new type of wireless technology that offers long range communication for devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) and LoRaWAN is one of the main technologies currently available to enable LPWAN environments. In the LoRaWAN architecture, the Join Server is a key component and is responsible for security tasks, such as authentication and key management. However, the Join Server acts as a Single Point of Failure (SPOF) since all encryption keys are stored centrally. Then, this paper presents a secure and fault-tolerant architecture to increase the levels of security and availability in LoRaWAN. A permissioned blockchain and smart contracts are used to replace the Join Server and solve the SPOF problem. A working prototype was created using open-source tools in order to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed architecture. Additionally, the performance of a blockchain network was analyzed in a cloud environment under multiple workloads and fault-tolerance experiments were performed to evaluate the impact of network failures. The results show a trade-off between availability and performance when choosing the number of blockchain peers in small scenarios. However, this behavior is reversed in large scenarios where the performance of multiple peers is best suited.
Xin Qi, Keping Yu, Toshio Sato, Kouichi Shibata · 13 authors
Distributed ledger technology is becoming popular these days because of its high confidentiality, decentralization, and nontampering. It is suitable for replacing centralized security disadvantaged point transfer systems. Low‐power wide area network (LPWAN) is capable for long‐range communication with low‐power consumption. The iconic features like wide area coverage and long battery‐powered duration make it best to combine with large‐scale IoT application deployment. In both industry and academic field, such combination of LPWAN and point transfer system is highly attended. However, the ledger management system generates too much data that low‐bandwidth network such as LPWAN can hardly handle; meanwhile, the processing power’s requirement for small IoT devices is challenging. Towards addressing these issues, we design a packet transmission optimizing mechanism for a ledger‐based point transfer system (LPTS) in LPWAN to reduce overall data traffic and build a simulator to evaluate its performance. Moreover, we have implemented the system and evaluated in field experiment.
David Soldani
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.
Jesús Sánchez-Gómez, Rafael Marín-Pérez, Mirko Ross, Antonio Fernando Skarmeta Gomez
IoT applications have recently proliferated due to their applicability in several fields, as well as the growing number of enabler technologies. For this reason, the landscape presents vast deployments formed by end-devices with heterogeneous capabilities or requirements. Low-power wide-area communication technologies have partially filled the gap for low-bandwidth low-cost IoT devices that are placed in vast coverage areas without a power-grid or cellular signal. However, these technologies seldom offer interoperable solutions to manage security-related tasks, such as monitoring cybersecurity attacks or firmware update distribution. Thus, there is a need for a human-centric platform that enables trust-worthy management of large heterogeneous IoT networks. In this work, we present a solution that enables trust monitoring and firmware update distribution employing novel open standardization efforts designed for constrained devices. The presented solution leverages on LO-CoAP-EAP, a novel lightweight bootstrapping protocol, LoRaWAN, a widespread long-range communication technology, SCHC, an IPv6 header compression and fragmentation mechanism, OSCORE, an end-to-end application-layer protection, IPFS a peer-to-peer decentralized storage solution, as well as a Hyperledger, a distributed ledger technology for secure validation of the distributed contents.
D Sivaganesan
Sustainable smart agriculture with increase in signal to interference or signal to noise ratio (SIR/SNR) for selection of best relay is discussed in a wireless blockchain based network. The overall communication throughput (OCT), power splitting relaying (PSR), time switching relaying (TSR) and transmission success rate (TRS) are also derived during the selection of best relay performance with and without interference. The performance of OCT, PSR, TSR and TRS increases with the increase in the number of potential relay nodes as seen in the results of derivation. The accuracy of the theoretical values are validated by numerical simulations.
Wei Yang Bryan Lim, Zehui Xiong, Jiawen Kang, Dusit Niyato · 7 authors
For several industrial applications, a sole data owner may lack sufficient training samples to train effective machine learning based models. As such, we propose a federated learning (FL) based approach to promote privacy-preserving collaborative machine learning for applications in smart industries. In our system model, a model owner initiates an FL task involving a group of workers, i.e., data owners, to perform model training on their locally stored data before transmitting the model updates for aggregation. There exists a tradeoff between service latency, i.e., the time taken for the training request to be completed, and age of information (AoI), i.e., the time elapsed between data aggregation from the deployed industrial Internet of Things devices to completion of the FL-based training. On one hand, if the data are collected only upon the model owner's request, the AoI is low. On the other hand, the service latency incurred is more significant. Furthermore, given that different training tasks may have varying AoI requirements, we propose a contract-theoretic task-aware incentive scheme that can be calibrated based on the weighted preferences of the model owner toward AoI and service latency. The performance evaluation validates the incentive compatibility of our contract amid information asymmetry, and shows the flexibility of our proposed scheme toward satisfying varying preferences of AoI and service latency.
Eryk Schiller, Elfat Esati, Sina Rafati Niya, Burkhard Stiller
This work develops an integration of Blockchains (BC) with the Internet-of-Things (IoT) using a highly constrained TelosB IoT platform based on the MSP430 processor family and CC2420 IEEE 802.15.4-compliant radio interfaces. The system is evaluated in an indoor office environment focusing on overhead and energy efficiency of BC transaction (TX) transmissions.
Lu Hou, Kan Zheng, Zhiming Liu, Xiaojun Xu · 5 authors
Efficiency and security have become critical issues during the development of the long-range (LoRa) system for Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. The centralized work method in the LoRa system, where all packages are processed and kept in the central cloud, cannot well exploit the resources in LoRa gateways and also makes it vulnerable to security risks, such as data falsification or data loss. On the other hand, the blockchain has the potential to provide a decentralized and secure infrastructure for the LoRa system. However, there are significant challenges in deploying blockchain at LoRa gateways with limited edge computing abilities. This article proposes a design and implementation of the blockchain-enabled LoRa system with edge computing by using the open-source Hyperledger Fabric, which is called as HyperLoRa. According to different features of LoRa data, a blockchain network with multiple ledgers is designed, each of which stores a specific kind of LoRa data. LoRa gateways can participate in the operations of the blockchain and share the ledger that keep the time-critical network data with small size. Then, the edge computing abilities of LoRa gateways are utilized to handle the join procedure and application packages processing. Furthermore, a HyperLoRa prototype is implemented on embedded hardware, which demonstrates the feasibility of deploying the blockchain into LoRa gateways with limited computing and storage resources. Finally, various experiments are conducted to evaluate the performances of the proposed LoRa system.
Victor Pasknel de Alencar Ribeiro, Raimir Holanda Filho, Alex Ramos, Joel J. P. C. Rodrigues
Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) is one of the enabling technologies of the Internet of Things (IoT), and focuses on providing long distance connectivity for a vast amount of smart devices. Currently, LoRa is one of the leading LPWAN solutions available for public use. In LPWANs, especially in LoRa, security is a major concern due to the resource constraints of the devices, the sensitivity level of the transmitted data, the large amount of connected devices, among other reasons. This paper studies the key management mechanism of LoRaWAN environments. A secure architecture for key management based on smart contracts and permissioned blockchain to enhance security and availability in LoRaWAN networks is proposed. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed blockchain-based LoRaWAN architecture, a working prototype has been created using open-source tools and commodity hardware. Performance analysis shows that the prototype presents similar execution time and latency values, when compared to a traditional system, especially for small and medium-sized LoRaWAN networks. We also discuss why the proposed solution can be used in environments with a large number of end-devices.