SolidWorx: A Resilient and Trustworthy Transactive Platform for Smart and Connected Communities

Internet of Things and data sciences are fueling the development of innovative solutions for various applications in Smart and Connected Communities (SCC). These applications provide participants with the capability to exchange not only data but also resources, which raises the concerns of integrity, trust, and above all the need for fair and optimal solutions to the problem of resource allocation. This exchange of information and resources leads to a problem where the stakeholders of the system may have limited trust in each other. Thus, collaboratively reaching consensus on when, how, and who should access certain resources becomes problematic. This paper presents SolidWorx, a blockchain-based platform that provides key mechanisms required for arbitrating resource consumption across different SCC applications in a domain-agnostic manner. For example, it introduces and implements a hybrid-solver pattern, where complex optimization computation is handled off-blockchain while solution validation is performed by a smart contract. To ensure correctness, the smart contract of SolidWorx is generated and verified using a model-based approach.

[1]  Yoichi Hirai,et al.  Defining the Ethereum Virtual Machine for Interactive Theorem Provers , 2017, Financial Cryptography Workshops.

[2]  Monika Sturm,et al.  On the design of communication and transaction anonymity in blockchain-based transactive microgrids , 2017, SERIAL@Middleware.

[3]  Christel Baier,et al.  Principles of model checking , 2008 .

[4]  Aron Laszka,et al.  Designing Secure Ethereum Smart Contracts: A Finite State Machine Based Approach , 2017, Financial Cryptography.

[5]  Joseph Sifakis,et al.  Rigorous Component-Based System Design Using the BIP Framework , 2011, IEEE Software.

[6]  Michael Devetsikiotis,et al.  Blockchains and Smart Contracts for the Internet of Things , 2016, IEEE Access.

[7]  Douglas C. Schmidt,et al.  Providing privacy, safety, and security in IoT-based transactive energy systems using distributed ledgers , 2017, IOT.

[8]  Prateek Saxena,et al.  Making Smart Contracts Smarter , 2016, IACR Cryptol. ePrint Arch..

[9]  M. Iansiti,et al.  The Truth about Blockchain , 2017 .

[10]  Douglas C. Schmidt,et al.  Elastic Infrastructure to Support Computing Clouds for Large-Scale Cyber-Physical Systems , 2014, 2014 IEEE 17th International Symposium on Object/Component/Service-Oriented Real-Time Distributed Computing.

[11]  Gabor Karsai,et al.  RIAPS: Resilient Information Architecture Platform for Decentralized Smart Systems , 2017, 2017 IEEE 20th International Symposium on Real-Time Distributed Computing (ISORC).

[12]  Gul A. Agha,et al.  ACTORS - a model of concurrent computation in distributed systems , 1985, MIT Press series in artificial intelligence.

[13]  Leonardo Neumeyer,et al.  S4: Distributed Stream Computing Platform , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshops.

[14]  Praveen Gauravaram,et al.  Blockchain for IoT security and privacy: The case study of a smart home , 2017, 2017 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops (PerCom Workshops).

[15]  Marco Pistore,et al.  NuSMV 2: An OpenSource Tool for Symbolic Model Checking , 2002, CAV.

[16]  Abdellah Ait Ouahman,et al.  Towards a Novel Privacy-Preserving Access Control Model Based on Blockchain Technology in IoT , 2017 .

[17]  Joseph Sifakis.  Rigorous system design , 2014, PODC '14.

[18]  Marcos Dias de Assunção,et al.  Apache Spark , 2019, Encyclopedia of Big Data Technologies.