Reliable Task Management Based on a Smart Contract for Runtime Verification of Sensing and Actuating Tasks in IoT Environments

Abstract

With the gradual popularization of Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications and the development of wireless networking technologies, the use of heterogeneous devices and runtime verification of task fulfillment with different constraints are required in real-world IoT scenarios. As far as IoT systems are concerned, most of them are built on centralized architectures, which reveal various assailable points in data security and privacy threats. Hence, this paper aims to investigate these issues by delegating the responsibility of a verification monitor from a centralized architecture to a decentralized manner using blockchain technology. We present a smart contract-based task management scheme to provide runtime verification of device behaviors and allows trustworthy access control to these devices. The business logic of the proposed system is specified by the smart contract, which automates all time-consuming processes cryptographically and correctly. The usability of the proposed solution is further demonstrated by implementing a prototype application in which the Hyperledger Fabric is utilized to implement the business logic for runtime verification and access control with one desktop and one Raspberry Pi. A comprehensive evaluation experiment is conducted, and the results indicate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed system.