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ECOM: Epoch Randomness-Based Consensus Committee Configuration for IoT Blockchains

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Principles and Practice of Blockchains

Abstract

The rapid advancement in Artificial Intelligence (AI) based on large-scale Internet of Things (IoT) networks leads to the proliferation of new smart applications that enable Smart Cities. Since the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, blockchain technology has evolved for extensive applications in various financial services and industrial applications. The increase in research interest from academic and industrial perspectives aims to exploit blockchain technology to enable a decentralized, verifiable, and traceable IoT networks. However, directly integrating cryptocurrency-oriented blockchain technologies into IoT systems faces performance and scalability issues. Splitting the whole blockchain network into multiple independent small-scale consensus networks is promising to overcome performance and scalability problems in heterogeneous IoT networks. In this chapter, following an in-depth review of state-of-the-art solutions for scaling blockchain networks, key design challenges and techniques are identified in terms of epoch randomness generation, network traffic model, and consensus committee configuration. Focusing on scalable and secure random committee selection, this chapter introduces an epoch randomness-enabled consensus committee configuration (ECOM) scheme. A proof-of-concept prototype is implemented and evaluated on a physical network that uses Raspberry Pis to simulate IoT devices. The experimental results show that the proposed ECOM protocol efficiently guarantees unpredictable randomness generation and committee selection under a small-scale byzantine network environment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY, USA

    Ronghua Xu, Deeraj Nagothu & Yu Chen

Authors
  1. Ronghua Xu
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  2. Deeraj Nagothu
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  3. Yu Chen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yu Chen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit, MI, USA

    Kevin Daimi

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Ioanna Dionysiou

  3. EPITA Engineering School, Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France

    Nour El Madhoun

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Xu, R., Nagothu, D., Chen, Y. (2023). ECOM: Epoch Randomness-Based Consensus Committee Configuration for IoT Blockchains. In: Daimi, K., Dionysiou, I., El Madhoun, N. (eds) Principles and Practice of Blockchains. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10507-4_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10507-4_7

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-10507-4

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