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Blockchain Technology for Internet of Things
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Blockchain Technology for Internet of Things

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2025) | Viewed by 3583

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Faisal Jamil

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Computer Science, School of Computing and Engineering, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK
Interests: Internet of Things; machine learning; WBAN; blockchain; microgrid; indoor localization; task orchestration
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

Blockchain is a decentralized, distributed ledger technology that ensures data security, transparency, and immutability through a network of nodes that validate and record transactions in linked blocks. It eliminates intermediaries, reduces data tampering, and enhances trust. The IoT is a network of interconnected devices communicating and exchanging data over the internet, enabling real-time monitoring, data collection, and automation across various sectors. The convergence of blockchain and IoT addresses IoT's challenges, such as security, privacy, and interoperability, through secure data exchange, automated processes via smart contracts, and decentralized peer-to-peer communication. This Special Issue aims to explore blockchain's application in enhancing IoT across multiple domains. Specifically, this Special Issue aims to focus on the following:

  • Applying blockchain in healthcare to secure patient data and ensure tamper-proof medical records.
  • Utilizing blockchain for smart cities ensures secure transactions, improving efficiency and trust in city initiatives.
  • Leveraging blockchain in smart navigation secures vehicle-to-vehicle communication, ensuring reliable navigation information.
  • Implementing blockchain for mission-critical IoT systems enhances security and resilience in critical infrastructure and industrial IoT.
  • Employing blockchain in big data ensures decentralized, secure processing, and sharing of IoT-generated data.
  • Using blockchain for supply chain management ensures transparency and traceability, reducing fraud and improving efficiency.
  • Integrating blockchain in agriculture secures IoT sensor data, aiding informed decisions and traceability of agricultural products.
  • Adopting blockchain for energy management secures transactions in smart grids, enhancing energy management efficiency.

Dr. Faisal Jamil
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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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.

Keywords

  • blockchain technology
  • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • healthcare
  • smart cities
  • smart navigation
  • mission-critical IoT systems
  • big data
  • supply chain management
  • agriculture
  • energy management
  • decentralized ledger
  • smart contracts
  • data security
  • privacy
  • interoperability
  • decentralized identity management

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 3879 KiB  
Article
CSA: Utility Optimization Scheduling Algorithm for IoT Blockchain Sharding Committees
by Xin Cong, Qi Jing, Lingling Zi and Changjiang Lin
Sensors 2025, 25(6), 1648; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25061648 - 7 Mar 2025
Viewed by 404
Abstract
The rapid proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT) poses significant challenges for utility optimization in sharding blockchain systems. In this paper, we propose a Committee Scheduling Algorithm (CSA), which employs an iterative optimization framework based on the Markov chain to balance transaction [...] Read more.
The rapid proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT) poses significant challenges for utility optimization in sharding blockchain systems. In this paper, we propose a Committee Scheduling Algorithm (CSA), which employs an iterative optimization framework based on the Markov chain to balance transaction throughput, cumulative latency, and transaction fees. CSA dynamically adjusts the committee members to achieve near-optimal solutions while addressing operational constraints. Theoretical analysis demonstrates the convergence bounds of the algorithm and its robustness against Sybil and eclipse attacks, ensuring high entropy for committee selection. Experimental results show that CSA outperforms Stochastic-Exploration (SE), Simulated Annealing (SA), and Policy Gradient-Based Computing Task Scheduling (PG-CTS) in terms of utility, convergence speed, and adaptability to dynamic events, with the committee scheduling utility improving by about 30%. Furthermore, CSA demonstrates stable performance in large-scale IoT environments characterized by dynamic node additions and failures. This paper offers a robust and adaptive solution for utility optimization in sharding blockchains, thereby improving the scalability, security, and efficiency of IoT applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Blockchain Technology for Internet of Things)
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27 pages, 1569 KiB  
Article
Federated Learning Framework for Real-Time Activity and Context Monitoring Using Edge Devices
by Rania A. Alharbey and Faisal Jamil
Sensors 2025, 25(4), 1266; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25041266 - 19 Feb 2025
Viewed by 664
Abstract
With the increasing need for effective elderly care solutions, this paper presents a novel federated learning-based system that uses smartphones as edge devices to monitor and enhance elderly care in real-time. In this system, elderly individuals carry smartphones equipped with Inertial Measurement Unit [...] Read more.
With the increasing need for effective elderly care solutions, this paper presents a novel federated learning-based system that uses smartphones as edge devices to monitor and enhance elderly care in real-time. In this system, elderly individuals carry smartphones equipped with Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors, including an accelerometer for activity recognition, a barometer for altitude detection, and a combination of the accelerometer, gyrometer, and magnetometer for location tracking. The smartphones continuously collect real-time data as the elderly individuals go about their daily routines. These data are processed locally on each device to train personalized models for activity recognition and contextual monitoring. The locally trained models are then sent to a federated server, where the FedAvg algorithm is used to aggregate model parameters, creating an improved global model. This aggregated model is subsequently distributed back to the smartphones, enhancing their activity recognition capabilities. In addition to model updates, information on the users’ location, altitude, and context is sent to the server to enable the continuous monitoring and tracking of the elderly. By integrating activity recognition with location and altitude data, the system provides a comprehensive framework for tracking and supporting the well-being of elderly individuals across diverse environments. This approach offers a scalable and efficient solution for elderly care, contributing to enhanced safety and overall quality of life. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Blockchain Technology for Internet of Things)
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24 pages, 2698 KiB  
Article
A Blockchain Parallel Activity Architecture with Social Network Graphs as Carriers for Internet of Things Networks
by Xin Cong and Lingling Zi
Sensors 2025, 25(4), 1003; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25041003 - 8 Feb 2025
Viewed by 1087
Abstract
There is a need for information transactions between nodes in the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technology can guarantee the anonymity and security of such transactions. However, current blockchain systems require networks to be connected in real time, but IoT networks cannot [...] Read more.
There is a need for information transactions between nodes in the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technology can guarantee the anonymity and security of such transactions. However, current blockchain systems require networks to be connected in real time, but IoT networks cannot fulfill this requirement. Therefore, we put forward a blockchain parallel activity architecture using carriers (CBPA), which is capable of deploying blockchain systems on IoT networks. Firstly, the blockchain operation architecture, and its components are demonstrated. Secondly, the generation methods of the carrier, the carrier block and the transaction block are designed, respectively. Additionally, a feature-to-transaction correspondence algorithm is proposed, with the objective of accommodating the previous work of nodes when they are in a disconnected state within the network. Thirdly, a parallel generation method for transaction blocks is designed to permit multiple nodes to collaborate in generating blocks, thereby reducing the difficulty of block generation while accelerating the generation speed. Finally, intra-block and cross-block conflict resolution algorithms, as well as a block consensus and fork processing algorithm, are designed to ensure that nodes can participate in blockchain activities without being at a disadvantage and obtain legal benefits even when operating on a network with high communication latency. Theoretical analysis indicates that CBPA has both security and liveness. The experimental results show that when the block size is 1MB, CBPA improves the average throughput by about 10% and reduces the average latency by about 14% compared to existing schemes. When the percentage of failed nodes reaches about 18%, the blocking time increases significantly, and the valid block rate decreases by 0.2%. The proposed CBPA architecture expands the applicable blockchain network and provides practical solutions for disconnected operations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Blockchain Technology for Internet of Things)
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21 pages, 1868 KiB  
Article
AllianceBlockchain in the Governance Innovation of Internet Hospitals
by Xiaofeng Wang, Xiaoguang Yue, Ahthasham Sajid and Noshina Tariq
Sensors 2025, 25(1), 142; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25010142 - 29 Dec 2024
Viewed by 681
Abstract
The rise of Internet hospitals has significant issues associated with data security and governance in managing sensitive patient data. This paper discusses an alliance blockchain (i.e., a private blockchain) model for governance innovation in internet hospitals with an improved encryption methodology. We compare [...] Read more.
The rise of Internet hospitals has significant issues associated with data security and governance in managing sensitive patient data. This paper discusses an alliance blockchain (i.e., a private blockchain) model for governance innovation in internet hospitals with an improved encryption methodology. We compare our proposed model, improved Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA) encryption, integrated into the blockchain framework. Improved RSA achieves impressive improvements in all key metrics by increasing the throughput by 24.7% and lowering the latency by 19.8% compared to the base model. Thus, the improved model is more optimized for processing transactions related to healthcare data. Memory usage was also reduced by 14.3%. While encryption time remained pretty close, the decryption time remarkably improved by 97.5%. IoT sensors are one of the foundations for Internet hospitals that produce consistent patient data streams, such as physiological and environmental metrics. The proposed alliance blockchain model enables the secure and efficient real-time management of this sensor data. These results demonstrate the capability of alliance blockchain and cryptographic upgrades in creating safe and efficient governance frameworks for Internet hospitals. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Blockchain Technology for Internet of Things)
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