Blockchain

Blockchains for Wireless Communications and Networking

Relevant Publications: IEEE COMSNETS '20, DySPAN '19

The core principals of Blockchain is leveraged to facilate fundamental applications in wireless networks, like crowd sensing and routing among trustless distributed Ad hoc wireless devices.

#1. Blockchains for Spectrum Sensing

[Paper] [Slides] [Video]

Distributed enforcement of spectrum policies require fusion of sensing results from a set of spatially scattered sensors to detect anomalous behavior with the highest possible accuracy. Central to this problem is the lack of trust or reputation of the participating sensors, which often leads to incorrect and biased inferences. In SenseChain, we leverage the distributed consensus mechanism employed in Blockchain networks to capture the reputation of the sensors, leading to a highly reliable and accurate enforcement system. Specifically, we define and analyze a detection mechanism to identify falsifying sensors using a distributed anomaly detection system and use the Blockchain to record the individual's behavior. The reputation is then based on the combination of the difficulty level of the consensus method and the degree of falsehood in the reported sensor values.

#2. Blockchains for Routing in MANETs

[Paper] [Slides] [Video]

One of the core issues in routing packets within Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) is the lack of trust and reputation of the participating nodes, which often leads to unreliable packet delivery. We use a fraction of nodes to validate routing actions taken by other nodes and leverage the distributed consensus mechanism in Blockchain networks to accrue the reputation of each node. Specifically, we employ heterogeneous difficulty for Proof of Work to represent the credibility of validation and design a scoring system to isolate malicious nodes via distributed consensus. The reputation of a node is then based on the combination of the difficulty level and the score. This reputation is incorporated in a novel routing metric to calculate the shortest, most reputed path between a source and destination node. The goal is to discourage malicious nodes by excluding those from participating in routing packets.