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Recent Advances of Blockchain Technologies in Sensor Networks

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (7 December 2020) | Viewed by 20083

Special Issue Editors

Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Odisha - India 769008
Interests: Blockchain; Internet of Things; Wireless Sensor Networks; Ad-hoc and Mobile Networks; Communication Algorithms

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Guest Editor
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Auckland University of Technology, Private Bag 92006, Auckland 1142, New Zealand
Interests: machine learning techniques applied to software defined vehicular networks; wireless/mobile communications systems including radio resource management, multiple access, MANETs/VANETs, green radio networks, and 5G-V2X networks
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Guest Editor
Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Odisha - India 769008
Interests: Blockchain; Optical Network, Wireless Network, Network Security, Mobile Computing, Embedded System

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Guest Editor
School of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand
Interests: machine learning; topological data analysis; signal processing; intelligent control; information theory

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, blockchain technology has started influencing the world, and its use is expected to grow even faster in the near future. This growth is evident by the sheer number of researchers, developers, and companies involved in this technology who are starting a number of projects/applications every day. Blockchain technology is popularized due to its application in the most popular cryptocurrency “Bitcoin”, and subsequently, many other cryptocurrencies like Litecoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, etc. have come to existence. However, the application of blockchain is not limited to only cryptocurrencies. The absence of intermediaries and immutability of the transactions make blockchain technology suitable to be applied in several fields like finance, banking, insurance, medical, smart contracts, gaming, Internet of Things (IoTs), lawsuits, cyber physical systems, edge computing, manufacturing, supply chain management, social networks, education, e-government, and other research areas. Though there are several cryptocurrencies in the market and few blockchain applications are available, blockchain is not yet a focus of solving practical problems, and so far, there is not enough reliable research work in this field. 

The aim of this Special Issue is to put together high-quality research articles on recent advances in the theoy and practical aspects related to blockchain technologies to serve as valuable references and directions for researchers in this field, from the industry as well as academia.  Topics may include but are not limited to:

  • Blockchain technologies in sensor networks;
  • Static and dynamic blockchain analysis;
  • Big data and the blockchain;
  • Human–computer interaction for blockchain applications;
  • Blockchain and the Internet of things (IoT);
  • Blockchain-oriented software engineering;
  • Blockchain application and implementation;
  • Blockchain security and testing;
  • Decentralized applications of blockchain;
  • Theories of blockchain and distributed systems;
  • Security of blockchain and decentralised schemes;
  • Blockchain and Bitcoin security;
  • Accountability and auditing in blockchain and cryptocurrency;
  • Blockchain in social networking;
  • Security and privacy enhancing technologies for blockchain and cryptocurrency.

Dr. Arun Kumar
Prof. Peter Han Joo Chong
Prof. Ashok Kumar Turuk
Prof. Edmund Lai
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.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

29 pages, 6692 KiB  
Article
Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain for Securing the Edge Internet of Things
by Houshyar Honar Pajooh, Mohammad Rashid, Fakhrul Alam and Serge Demidenko
Sensors 2021, 21(2), 359; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21020359 - 07 Jan 2021
Cited by 54 | Viewed by 10409
Abstract
Providing security and privacy to the Internet of Things (IoT) networks while achieving it with minimum performance requirements is an open research challenge. Blockchain technology, as a distributed and decentralized ledger, is a potential solution to tackle the limitations of the current peer-to-peer [...] Read more.
Providing security and privacy to the Internet of Things (IoT) networks while achieving it with minimum performance requirements is an open research challenge. Blockchain technology, as a distributed and decentralized ledger, is a potential solution to tackle the limitations of the current peer-to-peer IoT networks. This paper presents the development of an integrated IoT system implementing the permissioned blockchain Hyperledger Fabric (HLF) to secure the edge computing devices by employing a local authentication process. In addition, the proposed model provides traceability for the data generated by the IoT devices. The presented solution also addresses the IoT systems’ scalability challenges, the processing power and storage issues of the IoT edge devices in the blockchain network. A set of built-in queries is leveraged by smart-contracts technology to define the rules and conditions. The paper validates the performance of the proposed model with practical implementation by measuring performance metrics such as transaction throughput and latency, resource consumption, and network use. The results show that the proposed platform with the HLF implementation is promising for the security of resource-constrained IoT devices and is scalable for deployment in various IoT scenarios. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances of Blockchain Technologies in Sensor Networks)
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15 pages, 386 KiB  
Article
A Challenge-Response Assisted Authorisation Scheme for Data Access in Permissioned Blockchains
by Xiaoshuai Zhang, Chao Liu, Kok Keong Chai and Stefan Poslad
Sensors 2020, 20(17), 4681; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20174681 - 19 Aug 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2626
Abstract
Permissioned blockchains can be applied for sharing data among permitted users to authorise the data access requests in a permissioned blockchain. A consensus network constructed using pre-selected nodes should verify a data requester’s credentials to determine if he or she have the correct [...] Read more.
Permissioned blockchains can be applied for sharing data among permitted users to authorise the data access requests in a permissioned blockchain. A consensus network constructed using pre-selected nodes should verify a data requester’s credentials to determine if he or she have the correct permissions to access the queried data. However, current studies do not consider how to protect users’ privacy for data authorisation if the pre-selected nodes become untrusted, e.g., the pre-selected nodes are manipulated by attackers. When a user’s credentials are exposed to pre-selected nodes in the consensus network during authorisation, the untrusted (or even malicious) pre-selected nodes may collect a user’s credentials and other private information without the user’s right to know. Therefore, the private data exposed to the consensus network should be tightly restricted. In this paper, we propose a challenge-response based authorisation scheme for permissioned blockchain networks named Challenge-Response Assisted Access Authorisation (CRA3) to protect users’ credentials during authorisation. In CRA3, the pre-selected nodes in the consensus network do not require users’ credentials to authorise data access requests to prevent privacy leakage when these nodes are compromised or manipulated by attackers. Furthermore, the computational burden on the consensus network for authorisation is reduced because the major computing work of the authorisation is executed by the data requester and provider in CRA3. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances of Blockchain Technologies in Sensor Networks)
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26 pages, 1431 KiB  
Article
Towards a Secure Thermal-Energy Aware Routing Protocol in Wireless Body Area Network Based on Blockchain Technology
by Zeinab Shahbazi and Yung-Cheol Byun
Sensors 2020, 20(12), 3604; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20123604 - 26 Jun 2020
Cited by 63 | Viewed by 5737
Abstract
The emergence of biomedical sensor devices, wireless communication, and innovation in other technologies for healthcare applications result in the evolution of a new area of research that is termed as Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). WBAN originates from Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), which [...] Read more.
The emergence of biomedical sensor devices, wireless communication, and innovation in other technologies for healthcare applications result in the evolution of a new area of research that is termed as Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). WBAN originates from Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), which are used for implementing many healthcare systems integrated with networks and wireless devices to ensure remote healthcare monitoring. WBAN is a network of wearable devices implanted in or on the human body. The main aim of WBAN is to collect the human vital signs/physiological data (like ECG, body temperature, EMG, glucose level, etc.) round-the-clock from patients that demand secure, optimal and efficient routing techniques. The efficient, secure, and reliable designing of routing protocol is a difficult task in WBAN due to its diverse characteristic and restraints, such as energy consumption and temperature-rise of implanted sensors. The two significant constraints, overheating of nodes and energy efficiency must be taken into account while designing a reliable blockchain-enabled WBAN routing protocol. The purpose of this study is to achieve stability and efficiency in the routing of WBAN through managing temperature and energy limitations. Moreover, the blockchain provides security, transparency, and lightweight solution for the interoperability of physiological data with other medical personnel in the healthcare ecosystem. In this research work, the blockchain-based Adaptive Thermal-/Energy-Aware Routing (ATEAR) protocol for WBAN is proposed. Temperature rise, energy consumption, and throughput are the evaluation metrics considered to analyze the performance of ATEAR for data transmission. In contrast, transaction throughput, latency, and resource utilization are used to investigate the outcome of the blockchain system. Hyperledger Caliper, a benchmarking tool, is used to evaluate the performance of the blockchain system in terms of CPU utilization, memory, and memory utilization. The results show that by preserving residual energy and avoiding overheated nodes as forwarders, high throughput is achieved with the ultimate increase of the network lifetime. Castalia, a simulation tool, is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed protocol, and its comparison is made with Multipath Ring Routing Protocol (MRRP), thermal-aware routing algorithm (TARA), and Shortest-Hop (SHR). Evaluation results illustrate that the proposed protocol performs significantly better in balancing of temperature (to avoid damaging heat effect on the body tissues) and energy consumption (to prevent the replacement of battery and to increase the embedded sensor node life) with efficient data transmission achieving a high throughput value. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances of Blockchain Technologies in Sensor Networks)
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