A Taxonomy and Review of Lightweight Blockchain Solutions for Internet of Things Networks

Internet of things networks have spread to most digital applications in the past years. Examples of these networks include smart home networks, wireless sensor networks, Internet of Flying Things, and many others. One of the main difficulties that confront these networks is the security of their information and communications. A large number of solutions have been proposed to safeguard these networks from various types of cyberattacks. Among these solutions is the blockchain, which gained popularity in the last few years due to its strong security characteristics, such as immutability, cryptography, and distributed consensus. However, implementing the blockchain framework within the devices of these networks is very challenging, due to the limited resources of these devices and the resource-demanding requirements of the blockchain. For this reason, a large number of researchers proposed various types of lightweight blockchain solutions for resource-constrained networks. The "lightweight" aspect can be related to the blockchain architecture, device authentication, cryptography model, consensus algorithm, or storage method. In this paper, we present a taxonomy of the lightweight blockchain solutions that have been proposed in the literature and discuss the different methods that have been applied so far in each "lightweight" category. Our review highlights the missing points in existing systems and paves the way to building a complete lightweight blockchain solution for resource-constrained networks.Comment: 64 pages, 11 figures

Modelling Business Processes on a Blockchain Eco-System (BPMN)

Plokiahela tehnoloogiat on järjest enam vaadeldud kui paljutõotavat tehnoloogiat äriprotsesside muutmiseks. Selle potentsiaal on äratanud paljude ettevõtete tähelepanu uurimaks, kuidas plokiahel saab ettevõtetele kasuks olla. Sellist kasu saab siiski saavutada ainult äriprotsesse uuendades, mitte lihtsalt olemasolevat tehnoloogiat asendades. Protsessimudelid mängivad olulist rolli äriprotsesside uuendamisel, kuna nad analüüsivad neid protsesse ja vajadusel kujundavad ümber. Selles lõputöös uuritakse, kuidas plokiahelale orienteeritud protsesse saab modelleerida BPMN tegevuskeskse modelleerimise paradigma abil. Selle saavutamiseks viiakse läbi uurimistöö mittetulundusühingute auditeerimisprotsesside ümberkujundamise kohta. Äriprotsesse modelleeritakse praeguses vormis ja kujundatakse BPMN abil ümber. Lõputöös uuritakse BPMN sobivust, võttes arvesse harjumuspäraselt esinevaid plokiahela spetsiifilisi mustreid. Lõputöö näitab, et plokiahelale orienteeritud protsesse saab BPMN-iga piisavalt modelleerida. Siiski, BPMN-il puuduvad teatud elemendid, mis võiksid täpsemini kajastada korduma kippuvaid mustreid.Blockchain technology is more and more positioned as a promising technology for changing business processes. This potential has attracted companies to investigate how blockchain can be enable significant benefit gains for companies. However, such gains can only be realized by innovating business processes and not by merely replacing existing technology. Process models play an important role when engaged in innovating business processes because of process analysis and process redesign. This thesis investigates how blockchain-oriented processes can be modelled with the activity-centric modeling paradigm of BPMN. To achieve this, a case study on redesigning the auditing process of a non-profit organization is conducted. The business process is modelled as-is and redesigned by using BPMN. The thesis examines the suitability of BPMN by considering commonly occurring blockchain specific patterns. The thesis shows that blockchain-oriented processes can sufficiently be modeled with BPMN. However, BPMN lack certain elements that could represent commonly occurring patterns more accurately

Certification of IoT elements using the blockchain

[Abstract]: The non-fungible tokens have been widely used to prove ownership of art and gaming collectibles and used as utility tokens. The use of this tokens in this work is to represent the ownership of the internet of things devices from the manufacturing phase, in the distributed and decentralized public ledger. This physical devices will have attached a token that represent them in the blockchain and the possession of an owner by an unique identifier. Hence, the devices are identified by their public blockchain address and their token that associates them to their owner. Besides, this address allow the Internet of Things devices to participate in the network and establish a shared secret between owner and device. This work, proposes to use the physical unclonable functions to establish a noose between the physical world and the blockchain by deriving the private key of the blockchain address from the physical unclonable functions response. This link is difficult to tamper and can be traced during the lifetime of the token. Moreover, there is no need of using a security module or similar to store the key since the physical unclonable functions response is generated each the private key is needed so that it not stored in a non volatile memory. Once we have the shared secret this are used to cipher the certificates that will be deployed by the owner of the devices on a decentralized storage blockchain like FileCoin or the InterPlanetary File System. This certificates are used to communicate with other devices using standard protocols like Transport Layer Security or Datagram Transport Layer Security. An API called Powergate, is part of the infrastructure of certification of the Internet of Things elements, providing communication with the decentralized storage blockchains.[Resumo]: Os tokens non funxibles utlízanse amplamente para demostrar a propiedade de obxectos de colección de arte e xogos e utilizanse como ”utility tokens”. O uso destes tokens neste traballo é para representar na rede distribuído e descentralizado que é a blockchain, a propiedade dos dispositivos Internet of Things desde o mesmo momento da súa creación, é dicir. durante o proceso de manufactura. A estes dispositivos físicos achégaselles un token que os identifica na blockchain e permite representar a posesión dun propietario mediante un identificador único. Polo tanto, os dispositivos identifícanse pola súa dirección pública na cadea de bloques e o seu token é o que os asocia ao seu propietario. Ademais, esta dirección permite aos dispositivos da Internet of Things participar na rede e establecer un secreto compartido entre propietario e dispositivo. Este traballo, propón utilizar as funcións físicas non clonables para establecer un lazo entre o mundo físico e a blockchain derivando a clave privada da dirección do blockchain a partir da resposta das funcións físicas non clonables. Este vínculo é difícil de manipular e pode ser rastrexado durante a vida do token. Ademais, non é necesario utilizar un módulo de seguridade ou similar para almacenar a clave, xa que a resposta da función física non clonable é xerada durante o proceso de arranque e é guardada nunha memoria non volátil. Unha vez que teñamos o secreto compartido, este utilizarase para cifrar os certificados que serán despregados polo propietario dos dispositivos nunha blockchain de almacenamento descentralizado como FileCoin ou InterPlanetary File System. Estes certificados utilizaranse para comunicarse con outros dispositivos utilizando protocolos estándar como son Datagram Transport Layer Security y Transport Layer Security. Unha API compoñerá a infraestrutura de certificación dos elementos do Internet of Things proporcionando comunicación coas blockchains de almacenamento descentralizadas.Traballo fin de grao (UDC.FIC). Enxeñaría Informática. Curso 2021/202

Fit and added value of Blockchain Technology in today's Supply Chain

Throughout history, companies have had to deal with constant changes in technology (Awati, 2021). Technology is advancing faster and faster, and some companies are having trouble keeping up with these changes. That is why, this project aims to bring companies closer to a new disruptive technology, the Blockchain technology, it will deal with how this technology fits and what is the added value it offers to the supply chain activities of the companies. To this end, a template will be created that will collect all the tasks that should be done to reach the initial state of implementing this technology. This template will also be a roadmap that companies should follow, with relevant information about the resources involved in each task: money, time, and people. Moreover, this research project aims to generate this template so that companies will be able to solve the questions, such as: what does blockchain provide that is new, what does it do for me and how do I get started

Collaborative autonomy in heterogeneous multi-robot systems

As autonomous mobile robots become increasingly connected and widely deployed in different domains, managing multiple robots and their interaction is key to the future of ubiquitous autonomous systems. Indeed, robots are not individual entities anymore. Instead, many robots today are deployed as part of larger fleets or in teams. The benefits of multirobot collaboration, specially in heterogeneous groups, are multiple. Significantly higher degrees of situational awareness and understanding of their environment can be achieved when robots with different operational capabilities are deployed together. Examples of this include the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter that NASA has deployed in Mars, or the highly heterogeneous robot teams that explored caves and other complex environments during the last DARPA Sub-T competition. This thesis delves into the wide topic of collaborative autonomy in multi-robot systems, encompassing some of the key elements required for achieving robust collaboration: solving collaborative decision-making problems; securing their operation, management and interaction; providing means for autonomous coordination in space and accurate global or relative state estimation; and achieving collaborative situational awareness through distributed perception and cooperative planning. The thesis covers novel formation control algorithms, and new ways to achieve accurate absolute or relative localization within multi-robot systems. It also explores the potential of distributed ledger technologies as an underlying framework to achieve collaborative decision-making in distributed robotic systems. Throughout the thesis, I introduce novel approaches to utilizing cryptographic elements and blockchain technology for securing the operation of autonomous robots, showing that sensor data and mission instructions can be validated in an end-to-end manner. I then shift the focus to localization and coordination, studying ultra-wideband (UWB) radios and their potential. I show how UWB-based ranging and localization can enable aerial robots to operate in GNSS-denied environments, with a study of the constraints and limitations. I also study the potential of UWB-based relative localization between aerial and ground robots for more accurate positioning in areas where GNSS signals degrade. In terms of coordination, I introduce two new algorithms for formation control that require zero to minimal communication, if enough degree of awareness of neighbor robots is available. These algorithms are validated in simulation and real-world experiments. The thesis concludes with the integration of a new approach to cooperative path planning algorithms and UWB-based relative localization for dense scene reconstruction using lidar and vision sensors in ground and aerial robots

Distributed Ledger Technologies for Network Slicing: A Survey

Network slicing is one of the fundamental tenets of Fifth Generation (5G)/Sixth Generation (6G) networks. Deploying slices requires end-to-end (E2E) control of services and the underlying resources in a network substrate featuring an increasing number of stakeholders. Beyond the technical difficulties this entails, there is a long list of administrative negotiations among parties that do not necessarily trust each other, which often requires costly manual processes, including the legal construction of neutral entities. In this context, Blockchain comes to the rescue by bringing its decentralized yet immutable and auditable lemdger, which has a high potential in the telco arena. In this sense, it may help to automate some of the above costly processes. There have been some proposals in this direction that are applied to various problems among different stakeholders. This paper aims at structuring this field of knowledge by, first, providing introductions to network slicing and blockchain technologies. Then, state-of-the-art is presented through a global architecture that aggregates the various proposals into a coherent whole while showing the motivation behind applying Blockchain and smart contracts to network slicing. And finally, some limitations of current work, future challenges and research directions are also presented.This work was supported in part by the Spanish Formación Personal Investigador (FPI) under Grant PRE2018-086061, in part by the TRUE5G under Grant PID2019-108713RB-C52/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and in part by the European Union (EU) H2020 The 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership (5GPPP) 5Growth Project 856709.Publicad