Scalable Transport Mechanisms for Blockchain IoT Applications

Abstract

This paper studies various methods that improve the performance of Blockchain systems integrated with the Internet of Things (BIoT) using the LoRaWAN access method. Duty Cycle Enforcement (DCE) and Listen Before Talk (LBT) mechanisms as the channel access methods, Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) on the Transport Layer, and transaction aggregation on the Application Layer are evaluated. The main focus is put on the system performance studying the maximal number of transactions submitted, reliability of transport schemes, and the energy efficiency of the BIoT system. The combination of LBT-based MAC, the ARQ-enabled Transport Layer, and transaction aggregation at the Application Layer provides a good trade-off between submitted transaction count, packet loss, and energy efficiency. The proposed scheme complies to the data integrity demands of BIoT applications by specifying a reliable data transmission scheme from IoT devices to the BC.