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Emerging Blockchain Technology Solutions for Real-world Applications (EBTSRA)
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Emerging Blockchain Technology Solutions for Real-world Applications (EBTSRA)

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Sensor Networks".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2021) | Viewed by 36283

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Keping Yu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Global Information and Telecommunication Institute, Waseda University, Tokyo 169-8050, Japan
Interests: blockchain; internet of things; smart grid; information-centric networking
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Di Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Information Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China
Interests: wireless communications; signal processing; Internet of Things
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Yang Cao

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Kyoto University
Interests: data privacy and security

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue comprises papers presented at the 2020 IEEE 91st Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2020-Spring) Workshop on Emerging Blockchain Technology Solutions for Real-World Applications (EBTSRA), held 25–28 May 2020 in Antwerp, Belgium. This semi-annual flagship conference of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society will bring together individuals from academia, government, and industry to discuss and exchange ideas in the fields of wireless, mobile, and vehicular technology. This Special Issue is also open to other submissions. 

A blockchain is a secured, shared, and distributed ledger that facilitates the process of recording and tracking resources without the need of a centralized trusted authority. The technology is scalable and robust, and all participant nodes provide resources fairly, which alleviates many-to-one traffic flow bottlenecks. This technique decreases traffic delays and defeats errors due to a single point of failure. However, blockchain is still a nascent technology and as such there are challenges for the wide adoption of blockchain as a new enterprise and operational layer.  These challenges are around scalability, interoperability, standards, privacy, security, governance, and consensus mechanisms, which need to be defined and validated for real-world applications. This workshop opens a forum to present the recent research work related to blockchain-based technologies (e.g. smart contracts, threat and attack models, and incentive mechanisms). Moreover, research on other aspects inherently present in blockchain-based applications, like the internet of things, smart grids, e-health, logistics, etc. are also invited in this workshop.   

This Special Issue seeks original unpublished papers focusing on theoretical analysis, emerging applications, novel system architecture construction and design, experimental studies, and social impacts of blockchain. Both review/survey papers and technical papers are encouraged. Topic areas include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Blockchain in 5G technologies;Blockchain in IoT;
  • Blockchain in information-centric networking;
  • Blockchain in smart grids;
  • Blockchain in artificial intelligence;
  • Blockchain in networking and edge/fog/cloud technologies;
  • Blockchain in e-health;
  • Blockchain in decentralized financing and payments;
  • Blockchain in social networking;
  • Blockchain in agriculture;
  • Blockchain in autonomous vehicles;
  • Blockchain in mobile cellular networks;
  • Blockchain standardization;
  • Blockchain tools, simulators and test-bed;
  • Private blockchain systems;
  • Decentralized storage in blockchain;
  • Security, privacy, and trust of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies;
  • Secure smart contracts;
  • Consensus mechanisms.

We are proud to announce our agreement with MDPI to publish a Special Issue on Emerging Blockchain Technology Solutions for Real-World Applications (EBTSRA) and cordially invite all researchers to publish a full paper in this Special Issue of the journal Sensors (ISSN1424-8220; Impact Factor 3.031; https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors) published online by MDPI, Switzerland. According to the publishing rules regarding the extended version of conference papers, 1) Title and Abstract should be substantially different with that of conference paper so that they can be differentiated in various databases; 2) 50% new data should be added to make it a real and complete journal paper; 3) The conference proceedings should be mentioned and discussed in the Introduction section; 4) Conference proceedings should be submitted together as supplementary information. 

Dr. Keping Yu
Dr. Di Zhang
Dr. Yang Cao
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • blockchain
  • sensors
  • internet of things
  • real-world applications

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 1796 KiB  
Article
Secure Drone Network Edge Service Architecture Guaranteed by DAG-Based Blockchain for Flying Automation under 5G
by Ying Gao, Yangliang Liu, Quansi Wen, Hongliang Lin and Yijian Chen
Sensors 2020, 20(21), 6209; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20216209 - 30 Oct 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3900
Abstract
With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), the number of drones, as a consumer-level IoT device, is rapidly increasing. The existence of a large number of drones increases the risk of misoperation during manual control. Therefore, it has become an inevitable [...] Read more.
With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), the number of drones, as a consumer-level IoT device, is rapidly increasing. The existence of a large number of drones increases the risk of misoperation during manual control. Therefore, it has become an inevitable trend to realize drone flying automation. Drone flying automation mainly relies on massive drone applications and services as well as third-party service providers, which not only complicate the drone network service environment but also raise some security and privacy issues. To address these challenges, this article proposes an innovative architecture called Secure Drone Network Edge Service (SDNES), which integrates edge computing and blockchain into the drone network to provide real-time and reliable network services for drones. To design a feasible and rational SDNES architecture, we first consider the real-time performance and apply edge computing technology in it to provide low-latency edge services for drones under 5G mobile network. We use DAG-based blockchain to guarantee the security and reliability of the drone network service environment and effectively avoid malicious behaviors. In order to illustrate the feasibility of this architecture, we design and implement a specific service case named Drone Collision Avoidance Navigation Service based on SDNES. Finally, a simulation experiment for the specific service case and a series of other performance-related experiments were carried out to verify the feasibility and rationality of our proposed architecture. The experimental results demonstrate that SDNES is a promising architecture to assist and accelerate drone flying automation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Blockchain Technology Solutions for Real-world Applications (EBTSRA))
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21 pages, 793 KiB  
Article
CoNTe: A Core Network Temporal Blockchain for 5G
by Steven Platt, Luis Sanabria-Russo and Miquel Oliver
Sensors 2020, 20(18), 5281; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20185281 - 15 Sep 2020
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4407
Abstract
Virtual Network Functions allow the effective separation between hardware and network functionality, a strong paradigm shift from previously tightly integrated monolithic, vendor, and technology dependent deployments. In this virtualized paradigm, all aspects of network operations can be made to deploy on demand, dynamically [...] Read more.
Virtual Network Functions allow the effective separation between hardware and network functionality, a strong paradigm shift from previously tightly integrated monolithic, vendor, and technology dependent deployments. In this virtualized paradigm, all aspects of network operations can be made to deploy on demand, dynamically scale, as well as be shared and interworked in ways that mirror behaviors of general cloud computing. To date, although seeing rising demand, distributed ledger technology remains largely incompatible in such elastic deployments, by its nature as functioning as an immutable record store. This work focuses on the structural incompatibility of current blockchain designs and proposes a novel, temporal blockchain design built atop federated byzantine agreement, which has the ability to dynamically scale and be packaged as a Virtual Network Function (VNF) for the 5G Core. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Blockchain Technology Solutions for Real-world Applications (EBTSRA))
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17 pages, 792 KiB  
Article
Blockchain Tree as Solution for Distributed Storage of Personal ID Data and Document Access Control
by Sergii Kushch, Yurii Baryshev and Silvio Ranise
Sensors 2020, 20(13), 3621; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20133621 - 27 Jun 2020
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3895
Abstract
This paper introduces a new method of Blockchain formation for reliable storage of personal data of ID-card holders. In particular, the model of the information system is presented, the new structure of smart ID-cards and information on these cards are proposed. The new [...] Read more.
This paper introduces a new method of Blockchain formation for reliable storage of personal data of ID-card holders. In particular, the model of the information system is presented, the new structure of smart ID-cards and information on these cards are proposed. The new structure of Blockchain, “Blockchain Tree”, allows not only to store information from ID-cards but also to increase the level of security and access control to this information. The proposed Subchains system allows us to integrate Blockchain of the lower level to Blockchain of the higher level, allowing us to create a multilevel protected system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Blockchain Technology Solutions for Real-world Applications (EBTSRA))
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Review

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23 pages, 991 KiB  
Review
A Scoping Review of Integrated Blockchain-Cloud (BcC) Architecture for Healthcare: Applications, Challenges and Solutions
by Leila Ismail, Huned Materwala and Alain Hennebelle
Sensors 2021, 21(11), 3753; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21113753 - 28 May 2021
Cited by 36 | Viewed by 6902
Abstract
Blockchain is a disruptive technology for shaping the next era of a healthcare system striving for efficient and effective patient care. This is thanks to its peer-to-peer, secure, and transparent characteristics. On the other hand, cloud computing made its way into the healthcare [...] Read more.
Blockchain is a disruptive technology for shaping the next era of a healthcare system striving for efficient and effective patient care. This is thanks to its peer-to-peer, secure, and transparent characteristics. On the other hand, cloud computing made its way into the healthcare system thanks to its elasticity and cost-efficiency nature. However, cloud-based systems fail to provide a secured and private patient-centric cohesive view to multiple healthcare stakeholders. In this situation, blockchain provides solutions to address security and privacy concerns of the cloud because of its decentralization feature combined with data security and privacy, while cloud provides solutions to the blockchain scalability and efficiency challenges. Therefore a novel paradigm of blockchain-cloud integration (BcC) emerges for the domain of healthcare. In this paper, we provide an in-depth analysis of the BcC integration for the healthcare system to give the readers the motivations behind the emergence of this new paradigm, introduce a classification of existing architectures and their applications for better healthcare. We then review the development platforms and services and highlight the research challenges for the integrated BcC architecture, possible solutions, and future research directions. The results of this paper will be useful for the healthcare industry to design and develop a data management system for better patient care. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Blockchain Technology Solutions for Real-world Applications (EBTSRA))
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37 pages, 1037 KiB  
Review
Blockchain for Vehicular Internet of Things: Recent Advances and Open Issues
by Chunrong Peng, Celimuge Wu, Liming Gao, Jiefang Zhang, Kok-Lim Alvin Yau and Yusheng Ji
Sensors 2020, 20(18), 5079; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20185079 - 7 Sep 2020
Cited by 59 | Viewed by 6999
Abstract
The vehicular Internet of Things (IoT) comprises enabling technologies for a large number of important applications including collaborative autonomous driving and advanced transportation systems. Due to the mobility of vehicles, strict application requirements, and limited communication resources, the conventional centralized control fails to [...] Read more.
The vehicular Internet of Things (IoT) comprises enabling technologies for a large number of important applications including collaborative autonomous driving and advanced transportation systems. Due to the mobility of vehicles, strict application requirements, and limited communication resources, the conventional centralized control fails to provide sufficient quality of service for connected vehicles, so a decentralized approach is required in the vicinity to satisfy the requirements of delay-sensitive and mission-critical applications. A decentralized system is also more resistant to the single point of failure problem and malicious attacks. Blockchain technology has been attracting great interest due to its capability of achieving a decentralized, transparent, and tamper-resistant system. There are many studies focusing on the use of blockchain in managing data and transactions in vehicular environments. However, the application of blockchain in vehicular environments also faces some technical challenges. In this paper, we first explain the fundamentals of blockchain and vehicular IoT. Then, we conduct a literature review on the existing research efforts of the blockchain for vehicular IoT by discussing the research problems and technical issues. After that, we point out some future research issues considering the characteristics of both blockchain and vehicular IoT. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Blockchain Technology Solutions for Real-world Applications (EBTSRA))
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Other

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13 pages, 764 KiB  
Letter
Satellite-Aided Consensus Protocol for Scalable Blockchains
by Xintong Ling, Zheng Gao, Yuwei Le, Li You, Jiaheng Wang, Zhi Ding and Xiqi Gao
Sensors 2020, 20(19), 5616; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20195616 - 1 Oct 2020
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3742
Abstract
In this work, we propose a satellite-aided permissionless consensus protocol for scalable space–terrestrial blockchains. We design its working principle and workflow by taking full advantage of satellites for extensive coverage and ubiquitous connectivity. Based on the proposed protocol, we demonstrate how such a [...] Read more.
In this work, we propose a satellite-aided permissionless consensus protocol for scalable space–terrestrial blockchains. We design its working principle and workflow by taking full advantage of satellites for extensive coverage and ubiquitous connectivity. Based on the proposed protocol, we demonstrate how such a space–terrestrial blockchain grows and evolves through several typical cases in the presence of adversarial nodes, user misbehavior, and transmission outage. Taking proof of work (PoW) as a benchmark, we assess the system security by considering both adversarial miners and possible colluding satellites. Then, we analyze the maximum blockchain throughput under network capacity limits and evaluate the impact of information propagation delay via a Markov model. Simulation results support that the proposed satellite-aided consensus protocol achieves higher throughput and exhibits greater scalability than PoW. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Blockchain Technology Solutions for Real-world Applications (EBTSRA))
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11 pages, 426 KiB  
Letter
Enhancing Border Gateway Protocol Security Using Public Blockchain
by Lukas Mastilak, Marek Galinski, Pavol Helebrandt, Ivan Kotuliak and Michal Ries
Sensors 2020, 20(16), 4482; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20164482 - 11 Aug 2020
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3753
Abstract
Communication on the Internet consisting of a massive number of Autonomous Systems (AS) depends on routing based on Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Routers generally trust the veracity of information in BGP updates from their neighbors, as with many other routing protocols. However, this [...] Read more.
Communication on the Internet consisting of a massive number of Autonomous Systems (AS) depends on routing based on Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Routers generally trust the veracity of information in BGP updates from their neighbors, as with many other routing protocols. However, this trust leaves the whole system vulnerable to multiple attacks, such as BGP hijacking. Several solutions have been proposed to increase the security of BGP routing protocol, most based on centralized Public Key Infrastructure, but their adoption has been relatively slow. Additionally, these solutions are open to attack on this centralized system. Decentralized alternatives utilizing blockchain to validate BGP updates have recently been proposed. The distributed nature of blockchain and its trustless environment increase the overall system security and conform to the distributed character of the BGP. All of the techniques based on blockchain concentrate on inspecting incoming BGP updates only. In this paper, we improve on these by modifying an existing architecture for the management of network devices. The original architecture adopted a private blockchain implementation of HyperLedger. On the other hand, we use the public blockchain Ethereum, more specifically the Ropsten testing environment. Our solution provides a module design for the management of AS border routers. It enables verification of the prefixes even before any router sends BGP updates announcing them. Thus, we eliminate fraudulent BGP origin announcements from the AS deploying our solution. Furthermore, blockchain provides storage options for configurations of edge routers and keeps the irrefutable history of all changes. We can analyze router settings history to detect whether the router advertised incorrect information, when and for how long. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Blockchain Technology Solutions for Real-world Applications (EBTSRA))
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