A Distributed Ledger Approach to Digital Twin Secure Data Sharing

The Digital Twin refers to a digital representation of any real-world counterpart allowing its management (from simple monitoring to autonomy). At the core of the concept lies the inclusion of the entire asset lifecycle. To enable all lifecycle parties to partake, the Digital Twin should provide a sharable data base. Thereby, integrity and confidentiality issues are pressing, turning security into a major requirement. However, given that the Digital Twin paradigm is still at an early stage, most works do not consider security yet. Distributed ledgers provide a novel technology for multi-party data sharing that emphasizes security features such as integrity. For this reason, we examine the applicability of distributed ledgers to secure Digital Twin data sharing. We contribute to current literature by identifying requirements for Digital Twin data sharing in order to overcome current infrastructural challenges. We furthermore propose a framework for secure Digital Twin data sharing based on Distributed Ledger Technology. A conclusive use case demonstrates requirements fulfillment and is followed by a critical discussion proposing avenues for future work

Blockchain-based Digital Twins:Research Trends, Issues, and Future Challenges

Industrial processes rely on sensory data for decision-making processes, risk assessment, and performance evaluation. Extracting actionable insights from the collected data calls for an infrastructure that can ensure the dissemination of trustworthy data. For the physical data to be trustworthy, it needs to be cross validated through multiple sensor sources with overlapping fields of view. Cross-validated data can then be stored on the blockchain, to maintain its integrity and trustworthiness. Once trustworthy data is recorded on the blockchain, product lifecycle events can be fed into data-driven systems for process monitoring, diagnostics, and optimized control. In this regard, digital twins (DTs) can be leveraged to draw intelligent conclusions from data by identifying the faults and recommending precautionary measures ahead of critical events. Empowering DTs with blockchain in industrial use cases targets key challenges of disparate data repositories, untrustworthy data dissemination, and the need for predictive maintenance. In this survey, while highlighting the key benefits of using blockchain-based DTs, we present a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art research results for blockchain-based DTs. Based on the current research trends, we discuss a trustworthy blockchain-based DTs framework. We also highlight the role of artificial intelligence in blockchain-based DTs. Furthermore, we discuss the current and future research and deployment challenges of blockchain-supported DTs that require further investigation.</p

Enabling trust and security in digital twin management:a blockchain-based approach with ethereum and IPFS

The emergence of Industry 5.0 has highlighted the significance of information usage, processing, and data analysis when maintaining physical assets. This has enabled the creation of the Digital Twin (DT). Information about an asset is generated and consumed during its entire life cycle. The main goal of DT is to connect and represent physical assets as close to reality as possible virtually. Unfortunately, the lack of security and trust among DT participants remains a problem as a result of data sharing. This issue cannot be resolved with a central authority when dealing with large organisations. Blockchain technology has been proposed as a solution for DT information sharing and security challenges. This paper proposes a Blockchain-based solution for digital twin using Ethereum blockchain with performance and cost analysis. This solution employs a smart contract for information management and access control for stakeholders of the digital twin, which is secure and tamper-proof. This implementation is based on Ethereum and IPFS. We use IPFS storage servers to store stakeholders’ details and manage information. A real-world use-case of a production line of a smartphone, where a conveyor belt is used to carry different parts, is presented to demonstrate the proposed system. The performance evaluation of our proposed system shows that it is secure and achieves performance improvement when compared with other methods. The comparison of results with state-of-the-art methods showed that the proposed system consumed fewer resources in a transaction cost, with an 8% decrease. The execution cost increased by 10%, but the cost of ether was 93% less than the existing methods

Blockchain for the metaverse: A Review

Since Facebook officially changed its name to Meta in Oct. 2021, the metaverse has become a new norm of social networks and three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds. The metaverse aims to bring 3D immersive and personalized experiences to users by leveraging many pertinent technologies. Despite great attention and benefits, a natural question in the metaverse is how to secure its users’ digital content and data. In this regard, blockchain is a promising solution owing to its distinct features of decentralization, immutability, and transparency. To better understand the role of blockchain in the metaverse, we aim to provide an extensive survey on the applications of blockchain for the metaverse. We first present a preliminary to blockchain and the metaverse and highlight the motivations behind the use of blockchain for the metaverse. Next, we extensively discuss blockchain-based methods for the metaverse from technical perspectives, such as data acquisition, data storage, data sharing, data interoperability, and data privacy preservation. For each perspective, we first discuss the technical challenges of the metaverse and then highlight how blockchain can help. Moreover, we investigate the impact of blockchain on key-enabling technologies in the metaverse, including Internet-of-Things, digital twins, multi-sensory and immersive applications, artificial intelligence, and big data. We also present some major projects to showcase the role of blockchain in metaverse applications and services. Finally, we present some promising directions to drive further research innovations and developments toward the use of blockchain in the metaverse in the future

Decentralised additive manufacturing for architecture: exploring the integration of distributed ledger technologies with 3D printing.

This paper investigates the potential integration of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies with Additive Manufacturing in the context of architectural design and fabrication. The study aims to identify knowledge gaps, explore the affinity between these technologies, and challenge the current architecture production paradigm. Through a comprehensive state-of-the-art review and analysis of academic papers and industrial case studies, we identified emerging themes and gaps in the literature. We also examined the misalignment of incentives among key participants of the proposed systems. Our findings highlighted the relevance of blockchain technology in additive manufacturing, but also revealed significant challenges and misalignments in incentives among stakeholders. We argue that further research and experimentation are necessary to fully understand the technical feasibility and impact of integrating these technologies in architectural design and fabrication