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.
The sixth generation (6G) networks are expected to provide a fully connected world with terrestrial wireless and satellite communications integration. The design concept of 6G networks is to leverage artificial intelligence (Ai) to promote the intelligent and agile development of network services. intelligent services inevitably involve the processing of large amounts of data, such as storage, computing, and analysis, such that the data may be vulnerable to tampering or contamination by attackers. in this article, we propose a blockchain-based data security scheme for Ai applications in 6G networks. Specifically, we first introduce the 6G architecture (i.e., a space-air-ground-underwater integrated network). Then we discuss two Ai-enabled applications, indoor positioning and autonomous vehicle, in the context of 6G. Through a case study of an indoor navigation system, we demonstrate the effectiveness of blockchain in data security. The integration of Ai and blockchain is developed to evaluate and optimize the quality of intelligent service. Finally, we discuss several open issues about data security in the upcoming 6G networks.
Sixth generation (6G) network is a revolutionary technology to satisfy the ever-growing demands from the sustainable development of emerging industrial applications and services. Due to its high flexibility, convenient and rapid deployment, self-organization capability, and outstanding expansibility, network-in-box (NIB) represents a promising approach for future networks. The integration of NIB with 6G can lead to many new applications in geoscience, robotics, and industrial automation. For 6G-enabled NIB, services are deployed directly on the NIB, which increases the fault tolerance and reduces the traffic volume on the backhaul link. As more and more data are processed and shared in industrial applications and services, the security of data aggregation becomes a key challenge for 6G-enabled NIB. To address this challenge, in this article, we propose a blockchain based privacy-aware distributed collection (BPDC) oriented strategy for data aggregation. In BPDC, an improved blockchain with a new block header structure and two different block generation rules are designed and introduced, which restricts the task receivers to search and receive the tasks beyond their levels of security permission. While guaranteeing the data aggregation performance, BPDC can also achieve privacy protection by decomposing sensitive tasks and task receivers into multiple groups. Validation experiments show that the BPDC accomplishes low overhead, high throughput, and privacy preservation in various industrial applications.
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.
With the spread of novel coronavirus, global health concerns have increased as it has flattened the curve of mortality worldwide. To handle such a containment of disease, multi-swarm Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with 5G can be used to reduce human intervention with major benefits of high bandwidth, ultra-low-latency, and reliability. Multi-swarm UAVs sends a huge amount of data to ground stations with real-time connection density of 107/km2, which is a bottleneck on 5G networks; data security is another issue in sharing sensitive data. Motivated by these issues, in this article, we propose a blockchain-envisioned softwarized multi-swarming UAV communication scheme based on a 6G network with intelligent connectivity, Terahertz (THz) frequency bands, and virtualization of link and physical-level protocols. Softwarization makes the communication infrastructure flexible, agile, and easily configurable, and the potential of blockchain supports data security. Results show that the proposed scheme performs better in terms of processing delay, packet loss reduction, and throughput compared to exiting 4G/5G-based systems.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) can provide efficient and effective solutions for the development of smart cities. They have been widely used in civilian and military applications, such as data acquisition, data dissemination, audio and video surveillance, aerial photography, crop surveys, and real-time medical care. The network communication and security challenges in UAV networks are explored by research organizations across the globe, but still, many challenges remain unsolved like sensitive and end-user-related applications. Moreover, traditional UAV communication is not adequate to deal with the high mobility and dynamic features of UAV. So, there is a need for an efficient and secure network of UAV as they have been widely used in hostile environments. Motivated from the aforementioned facts, in this article, we present a broad survey on the architecture, requirements, and use cases of 6G technology. It also presents a solution taxonomy based on the applications of UAV communication. Based on the findings from the survey, we present a blockchain-envisioned security solution and 6G-enabled network connectivity in UAV communication. A summary of future research directions for the integration of blockchain and 6G technology in UAV communications is also presented. Then, we present a case study of a blockchain-envisioned UAV communication using 6G networks to secure Industry 4.0 applications.
Taras Maksymyuk, Juraj Gazda, Marcel Vološin, Gabriel Bugár · 7 authors
Mobile network evolution beyond 5G requires a complete rethink of spectrum management. To fulfill unprecedented performance expectations, future 6G networks require fine-grained spectrum sharing in terms of volume, time, and usage area. In this article, we study a novel direction for blockchain integration into the mobile network infrastructure. In particular, we discuss the potential benefits and challenges of the proposed architecture in terms of spectrum and infrastructure sharing. The key implementation aspects of blockchain for 6G, such as a tokenization model for spectrum and infrastructure, the distributed ledger structure, and feasible consensus algorithms, are studied in detail. Finally, we implement three types of smart contracts for service provisioning with semi-persistent, dynamic, and intelligent spectrum trading and analyze the number of transactions for each type. The simulation results show that the average throughput in the case of intelligent spectrum trading is 7 percent higher than that of the semi-persistent trading and 4 percent lower than that of the dynamic trading. From the economic perspective of operators, intelligent trading provides 19 percent more profit than semi-persistent trading and 8 percent less profit than intelligent trading. Intelligent trading also has much lower overhead in the blockchain than dynamic trading, while being very close to the lowest overhead of semi-persistent trading.
Emerging technologies, such as mobile-edge computing (MEC) and next-generation communications are crucial for enabling rapid development and deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT). With the increasing scale of IoT networks, how to optimize the network and allocate the limited resources to provide high-quality services remains a major concern. The existing work in this direction mainly relies on models that are of less practical value for resource-limited IoT networks, and can hardly simulate the dynamic systems in real time. In this article, we integrate digital twins with edge networks and propose the digital twin edge networks (DITENs) to fill the gap between physical edge networks and digital systems. Then, we propose a blockchain-empowered federated learning scheme to strengthen communication security and data privacy protection in DITEN. Furthermore, to improve the efficiency of the integrated scheme, we propose an asynchronous aggregation scheme and use digital twin empowered reinforcement learning to schedule relaying users and allocate spectrum resources. Theoretical analysis and numerical results confirm that the proposed scheme can considerably enhance both communication efficiency and data security for IoT applications.
Neutral host SCPs represent a key element of the 5G vision of ultra-dense mobile networks. However, current business models mostly focus on multi-year agreements for large venues, such as stadiums and hotel chains. These business agreements are regulated through binding SLAs, which tend to be too cumbersome and costly for smaller-scale SCPs. As a result, the neutral host model does not scale up to its full potential. In this article, we propose a framework to enable the participation of small- to medium-sized players in the cellular market as providers offering network resources to MNOs. To this purpose, we review the current and emerging spectrum and technology opportunities that SCPs can use for neutral host deployments. We also propose the use of blockchain-enabled smart contracts as a simple and cost-efficient alternative to traditional SLAs for small-scale SCPs. To demonstrate this, we describe a proof of concept implementation of an Ethereum-based smart contract platform for best effort service between an SCP and an MNO. Our simulations on potential smart contract-based deployments in city center Dublin show that the received signal strength in the considered area will increase by an average of 10 percent.
Emanuele Di Pascale, Hamed Ahmadi, Linda Doyle, Irene Macaluso
Neutral host SCPs represent a key element of the 5G vision of ultra-dense mobile networks. However, current business models mostly focus on multi-year agreements for large venues, such as stadiums and hotel chains. These business agreements are regulated through binding SLAs, which tend to be too cumbersome and costly for smaller-scale SCPs. As a result, the neutral host model does not scale up to its full potential. In this article, we propose a framework to enable the participation of small- to medium-sized players in the cellular market as providers offering network resources to MNOs. To this purpose, we review the current and emerging spectrum and technology opportunities that SCPs can use for neutral host deployments. We also propose the use of blockchain-enabled smart contracts as a simple and cost-efficient alternative to traditional SLAs for small-scale SCPs. To demonstrate this, we describe a proof of concept implementation of an Ethereum-based smart contract platform for best effort service between an SCP and an MNO. Our simulations on potential smart contract-based deployments in city center Dublin show that the received signal strength in the considered area will increase by an average of 10 percent.
Asuquo A. Okon, Nishant Jagannath, Ibrahim Elgendi, Jaafar M. H. Elmirghani · 6 authors
Despite increase in deployment of BS, MNOs are still faced with the daunting challenge of providing adequate coverage and capacity in indoor environments. Furthermore, the trust-less environment in which MNOs operate makes it further challenging to achieve interoperability across carriers. Recently the concept of mOs has emerged as a promising solution through deployment of small cells. However, their success has been severely hampered by the absence of a framework for creating and managing business agreements between key stakeholders, i.e., MNOs and mOs. This article proposes a blockchain-enabled SDN approach for managing radio spectrum access between MNOs using smart contracts over small cell networks. Specifically, our solution uses a smart contract to validate transactions between MNOs. Simulation results show that our solution guarantees seamless handoff and high availability between different operators in contrast to a break in connectivity in the absence of an agreement.
5G, blockchain, and drones are potentially revolutionizing future technologies. 5G promises to provide a tactile internet environment to the users. Tactile internet is characterized by ultra-low latency, with high reliability, security, and availability. Few attempts have been made in academia and industry to use drones-mounted small cell base stations. Such flying base stations can be used in disaster areas, emergencies, or in rural areas. The major challenge in deploying such flying base stations is data security. Drones being resource-constrained devices cannot be overloaded with heavy security algorithms. Moreover, the decision of user association, drone movement, and bandwidth allocation are major bottlenecks in deploying such networks. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based security framework for drone mounted base stations in the tactile internet environment. Furthermore, a game-theoretic model is proposed as a smart contract to decide on the dynamic bandwidth allocation to different users based on bandwidth availability and cost. Numerical results show that the proposed model helps in better user experience in terms of bandwidth allocation in low network areas.
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
Mika Ylianttila, Raimo Kantola, Andrei Gurtov, Mucchi, Lozenzo · 27 authors
The roles of trust, security and privacy are somewhat interconnected, but different facets of next generation networks. The challenges in creating a trustworthy 6G are multidisciplinary spanning technology, regulation, techno-economics, politics and ethics. This white paper addresses their fundamental research challenges in three key areas. Trust: Under the current "open internet" regulation, the telco cloud can be used for trust services only equally for all users. 6G network must support embedded trust for increased level of information security in 6G. Trust modeling, trust policies and trust mechanisms need to be defined. 6G interlinks physical and digital worlds making safety dependent on information security. Therefore, we need trustworthy 6G. Security: In 6G era, the dependence of the economy and societies on IT and the networks will deepen. The role of IT and the networks in national security keeps rising - a continuation of what we see in 5G. The development towards cloud and edge native infrastructures is expected to continue in 6G networks, and we need holistic 6G network security architecture planning. Security automation opens new questions: machine learning can be used to make safer systems, but also more dangerous attacks. Physical layer security techniques can also represent efficient solutions for securing less investigated network segments as first line of defense. Privacy: There is currently no way to unambiguously determine when linked, deidentified datasets cross the threshold to become personally identifiable. Courts in different parts of the world are making decisions about whether privacy is being infringed, while companies are seeking new ways to exploit private data to create new business revenues. As solution alternatives, we may consider blockchain, distributed ledger technologies and differential privacy approaches.
5G propels mobile technology into the exclusive group of general purpose technologies that have marked the evolution of our history and triggered transformative changes in society. Edge computing is instrumental in helping 5G fulfil its promise and meet its expectations and requirements. This article discusses the value shifts occurred in the telecom value chain and shows how blockchain can aid value extraction in 5G, highlighting a number of services and applications of 5G networks that benefit from distributed ledger technology. Furthermore, the paper details a couple of applications enabled by the marriage of 5G with distributed ledger technology: autonomous unmanned (vehicular or aerial) systems and connected supply chains. The combination of 5G and edge computing permits to unlock new business value in telecom networks; in the same way that edge computing is the nexus of creating new value in 5G, blockchain is the fulcrum of capturing that new value.
Hao Xu, Paulo Valente Klaine, Oluwakayode Onireti, Bin Cao · 6 authors
The sixth-generation (6G) network must provide better performance than previous generations to meet the requirements of emerging services and applications, such as multi-gigabit transmission rate, higher reliability, and sub-1 ms latency and ubiquitous connection for the Internet of Everything (IoE). However, with the scarcity of spectrum resources, efficient resource management and sharing are crucial to achieving all these ambitious requirements. One possible technology to achieve all this is the blockchain. Because of its inherent properties, the blockchain has recently gained an important position, which is of great significance to the 6G network and other networks. In particular, the integration of the blockchain in 6G will enable the network to monitor and manage resource utilization and sharing efficiently. Hence, in this paper, we discuss the potentials of the blockchain for resource management and sharing in 6G using multiple application scenarios, namely, Internet of things, device-to-device communications, network slicing, and inter-domain blockchain ecosystems.
Tri Nguyen, Ngoc Hong Tran, Lauri Lovén, Juha Partala · 6 authors
6G wireless networks improve on 5G by further increasing reliability, speeding up the networks and increasing the available bandwidth. These evolutionary enhancements, together with a number of revolutionary improvements such as high-precision 3D localization, ultra-high reliability and extreme mobility, introduce a new generation of 6G-native applications. Such application can be based on, for example, distributed, ubiquitous Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ultra-reliable, low-latency Internet of Things (IoT). Along with the enhanced connectivity and novel applications, privacy and security of the networks and the applications must be ensured. Distributed ledger technologies such as blockchain provide one solution for application security and privacy, but introduce their own set of security and privacy risks. In this work, we discuss the opportunities and challenges related to blockchain usage in 6G, and map out possible directions for overtaking the challenges.
The world is going through a fundamental transformation with the emergence of the intelligent information era. The key domains linked with human life such as healthcare, transport, entertainment, and smart cities are expected to elevate the quality of service with high-end user experience. Therefore, the telecommunication infrastructure has to meet unprecedented service level requirements such as ultra high data rates and traffic volume for the prominent future applications such as Virtual Reality (VR), holographic communications, and massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC). There are significant challenges identifiable in the communication context to match the envisaged demand surge. The blockchain and distributed ledger technology is one of the most disruptive technology enablers to address most of the current limitations and facilitate the functional standards of 6G. In this work, we explore the role of blockchain to address formidable challenges in 6G, future application opportunities and potential research directions.
Jun Feng, Laurence T. Yang, Ronghao Zhang, Benard Safari Gavuna
Tucker decomposition has been widely used to extract meaningful and underlying data from heterogeneous data generated by different kinds of devices in a wide range of industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications. IIoT data uploaded to the cloud contain personal and sensitive information; thus, there is a growing concern about data privacy. Current existing data analysis solutions, however, assume that the data are reliably and securely collected from different IIoT data providers, an assumption that is not always true in the real world. To address the issues, in this article we propose a privacy-preserving tucker train decomposition based on gradient descent over blockchain-based encrypted IIoT data. Specifically, we use blockchain techniques to enable IIoT data providers to reliably and securely share their data by encrypting them locally before recording them in the blockchain. We use tensor train (TT) theory to build an efficient TT-based tucker decomposition based on gradient descent that tremendously reduces the number of elements to be updated during the tucker decomposition. We utilize the massive resources of fogs and clouds to implement an efficient privacy-preserving tucker train decomposition scheme. We use homomorphic encryption to build our scheme that does complete tucker train decomposition without the involvement of users. Results from a series of extensive experiments on synthetic datasets and real-world datasets demonstrate that our proposed scheme is efficient.
Mohammad Tahir, Mohamed Hadi Habaebi, Mohammad Dabbagh, Amna Mughees · 6 authors
Until now, every evolution of communication standard was driven by the need for providing high-speed connectivity to the end-user. However, 5G marks a radical shift from this focus as 5G and beyond networks are being designed to be future-proof by catering to diverse requirements of several use cases. These requirements include Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications, Massive Machine-Type Communications and Enhanced Mobile Broadband. To realize such features in 5G and beyond, there is a need to rethink how current cellular networks are deployed because designing new radio access technologies and utilizing the new spectrum are not enough. Several technologies, such as software-defined networking, network function virtualization, machine learning and cloud computing, are being integrated into the 5G networks to fulfil the need for diverse requirements. These technologies, however, give rise to several challenges associated with decentralization, transparency, interoperability, privacy and security. To address these issues, Blockchain has emerged as a potential solution due to its capabilities such as transparency, data encryption, auditability, immutability and distributed architecture. In this paper, we review the state-of-art application of Blockchain in 5G network and explore how it can facilitate enabling technologies of 5G and beyond to enable various services at the front-haul, edge and the core. Based on the review, we present a taxonomy of Blockchain application in 5G networks and discuss several issues that can be solved using Blockchain integration. We then present various field-trials and Proof of concept that are using Blockchain to address the challenges faced in the current 5G deployment. Finally, we discuss various challenges that need to be addressed to realize the full potential of Blockchain in beyond 5G networks. The survey presents a broad range of ideas related to Blockchain integration in 5G and beyond networks that address issues such as interoperability, security, mobility, resource allocation, resource sharing and management, energy efficiency and other desirable features.
Internet of Things (IoT) and Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) technology acts as a significant part of daily lives to facilitate control and monitoring of objects to revolutionize the ways that human interacts with physical world. IoT system includes large volume of data with network connectivity, power, and storage resources to transform data into meaningful information. Blockchain has decentralized nature to provide useful mechanism for addressing IoT challenges. Blockchain is distributed ledger with fundamental attributes, namely recorded, transparent, and decentralized. Blockchain formed participants in distributed ledger to record the transactions and communicate with other through trustless method. Security is considered as the most valuable features of Blockchain. IoT and Blockchain are emerging ideas for creating the applications to share the intrinsic features. Several existing works has been developed for the integration of blockchain with IoT. But, Blockchain protocols in the state-of-the-art works with IoT failed to consider the computational loads, delays, and bandwidth overhead which lead to new set of problems. The review estimates main challenges in integration of Blockchain and IoT technologies to attain high-level solutions by addressing the shortcomings and limitations of IoT and Blockchain technologies.
Abir El Azzaoui, Sushil Kumar Singh, Yi Pan, Jong Hyuk Park
Nowadays, 5G network is considered to be one of the main pillars of various industries, including the Internet of Things (IoT), smart cities, virtual reality, and many more. Unlike previous network generations, 5G utilizes complex digital technologies such as massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (mMIMO) and runs over higher radio frequencies. The introduction of new technologies and advanced features in the 5G network raises new challenges for network operators, and merging Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the effective solutions to address these complexities. However, AI-enabled 5G network engenders security concerns and requires improvement to meet the standardization and qualification of the new network generation. To mitigate these dilemmas, Blockchain must be integrated. Blockchain, as a decentralized methodology provides a secure sharing of information and resources among various nodes of 5G environments. Blockchain can support other technologies, such as AI-based 5G, to create smarter, more efficient, and secure cellular networks. In this article, we present a comprehensive intelligence and secure data analytics framework for 5G networks based on the convergence of Blockchain and AI named “Block5GIntell”. We depict the applications of Blockchain and AI on 5G networks separately and we argue on the support that Blockchain can provide for AI to create smart and secure 5G networks relying on our proposed framework. To support our proposition, we present an energy-saving case study using Blockchain for AI-enabled 5G. The simulation shows an overall 20% decrease in energy consumption at the RAN level.
Latif U. Khan, Ibrar Yaqoob, Muhammad Imran, Zhu Han · 5 authors
Internet of everything (IoE)-based smart services are expected to gain immense popularity in the future, which raises the need for next-generation wireless networks. Although fifth-generation (5G) networks can support various IoE services, they might not be able to completely fulfill the requirements of novel applications. Sixth-generation (6G) wireless systems are envisioned to overcome 5G network limitations. In this article, we explore recent advances made toward enabling 6G systems. We devise a taxonomy based on key enabling technologies, use cases, emerging machine learning schemes, communication technologies, networking technologies, and computing technologies. Furthermore, we identify and discuss open research challenges, such as artificial-intelligence-based adaptive transceivers, intelligent wireless energy harvesting, decentralized and secure business models, intelligent cell-less architecture, and distributed security models. We propose practical guidelines including deep Q-learning and federated learning-based transceivers, blockchain-based secure business models, homomorphic encryption, and distributed-ledger-based authentication schemes to cope with these challenges. Finally, we outline and recommend several future directions.