TOWARD AN INTEROPERABLE AND SCALABLE IOT-DRIVEN SMART CITY SOLUTION USING BLOCKCHAIN

Abstract

The vision of an integrated future is based on smart networks and the relationship between data-intensive gadgets, connections, and human activities to create a smart city or digital utopia. Geometrically, the number of devices connected to the Internet is increasing significantly with the development of information technology. For government service providers, a smarter city is indicative of efficient services, omnichannel communication, and improved quality of service across a growing network of urban residents. For corporations, the smart city represents a significant commercial opportunity, creating intimate, data-rich customer-supported relationships between an Internet of Things and the user base. Although the concept of a networked cityscape is currently being tested and actively used by consumers using a range of networked nodes and connected service solutions, the interoperability, scalability, and security of this emerging cyber-physical ideal have yet to be adequately resolved. The current research has explored a range of targeted IoT data management solutions, focusing on the challenges of scaling a system across both vertical and horizontal planes in a network infrastructure that is largely proprietary and corporation controlled. Through an in-depth traditional literature review, it was determined that there are four central problems facing the smart city agenda: the security of the system, the interoperability of distributed nodes, the management of data resources, and the scalability of a diversified IoT network. A systematic literature review was conducted to assess the prior experimental basis for blockchain integration in IoT applications, revealing the advantages of intelligent, decentralised, adaptive, and service-oriented solutions that transfer data management accountability out of the hands of corporations and into the controlled management of autonomous, permissions-based systems and their downstream users. Conceptual support for integrating blockchain into the IoT solution was obtained through an empirical assessment of the perceptions and expertise of 122 representatives from the global IoT industry. This highlighted the solution-oriented, system-centric benefits of a decentralised, autonomous data management backbone that could be applied to future IoT-based smart city solutions. When compared with the SLR and the prior academic justifications for blockchain integration, however, it became evident that a pyramid of three-factor precedent was universally necessitated: scalable, secure, and autonomous. This research has confirmed that a commitment to decentralisation and blockchain-middleware data management is critical to the predictable, reliable, and immutable negotiation of the IoT-enabled network in order to meet the broad and diverse needs of the smart city and its future development. The simulation and functional experiments prove that the obtained performance evaluation demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed blockchain as a middleware model. Hence, the proposed BaaM solution has been evaluated, validated across both its empirical and theoretical propositions, and presented as a unified standard for future application as both a decision-support tool and an instrument capable of bridging the gaps between proprietary network solutions in the IoT application within smart cities solutions. Commercial interests will be protected by edge-based software solutions and sensor-based innovations, whilst consumer privacy and behaviour will be preserved by the trustworthy characteristics of the unified blockchain middleware solution.