2022 5th International Conference on Advances in Science and Technology (ICAST)

A Sliding Window Blockchain Architecture for the

Internet of Things
Shelke Kavita Dakshayani G.
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Engineering Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Engineering
Fr. C. Rodrigues Institute of Technology, Vashi Fr. C. Rodrigues Institute of Technology, Vashi
Navi Mumbai, India Navi Mumbai, India
[email protected] [email protected]
2022 5th International Conference on Advances in Science and Technology (ICAST) | 978-1-6654-9263-8/22/$31.00 ©2022 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICAST55766.2022.10039664

Abstract—The Internet of Things is a concept that allows Scalability refers to how many transactions a blockchain
people to connect to the Internet and access services through can handle in a given amount of time. Bitcoin is one of the best
new, unconventional computing and communication practices. cryptocurrencies of blockchain. There is no central authority
But there are two issues in the Internet of Things. These are that regulates the funds and security aspects of bitcoin, as it is a
security and data protection. Due to the limited processor, decentralized payment system. Bitcoin's block size is restricted
storage, and energy resources of IoT devices existing security to 1 MB, and it mines a new block every ten minutes [7]. The
frameworks are unable to meet the essential security published research work of the paper [4] addresses blockchain
requirements. Centralized security is not good for IoT as they technology as one of the methods for providing data security
tend towards a single point of failure and are more expensive for
and privacy that may be used in various IoT applications.
protecting centralized resources against attacks. Therefore,
decentralized IoT security must be adapted. Blockchain is a a
decentralised security system that can be used to secure many
different things. Blockchain is not currently appropriate
technology for IoT because it is too complicated and poorly
scalable. This paper shows research on and implementation of
Sliding Window Blockchain (SWBC), a conventional blockchain
architecture used in Internet of Things applications. SWBC's
performance is computed using live data which is supplied by a
smart home testbed.

Keywords – Blockchain, Internet of Things, Sliding Window

Blockchain, Proof of Work, Block size.

I. INTRODUCTION
A blockchain is a type of database that uses cryptography to
create a digital ledger of transactions among participating
entities. Every transaction of the public ledger is validated with
a common agreement by the majority of the participants who
are part of the system. Blockchain is a data format in which
new transactions are added at the end of the ledger and
administrator rights are not required to add the transaction. A
consensus algorithm must be used to verify the new block that
is added to the chain by all other participants [8]. In
comparison to a relational database system, attackers find it
difficult to modify data on the blockchain because it has
distributed control. Unlike blockchain, which was specifically
created for the storing of decentralised data, relational
databases are often designed for the centralised management of Fig.1. Blockchain in the Internet of Things [4]
data. Permissioned and permissionless blockchains are the two
types of blockchains. Permissioned blockchains are private II. RELATED WORK
blockchains that need pre-verification of network users
expected to know each other, whereas permissionless A. Overview of the use of blockchain in the Internet of
blockchains are public blockchains [2]. Due to the Things
computational complexity of the Proof-of-Work (PoW) Virtual and physical items can be connected through the
consensus algorithm, conventional blockchain approaches are Internet of Things (IoT) [11], allowing for new digital services
not appropriate for IoT with live data streams [3]. As that can make our lives better. Despite the benefits of IoT, the
computing time grows, the security of blockchain becomes existing centralized design suffers from several shortcomings,
impracticable to employ for IoT. such as single points of failure, security, data protection,
transparency, and data integrity. These issues will inhibit the
growth of IoT applications in the future. These issues can be

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 2022 5th International Conference on Advances in Science and Technology (ICAST)

addressed most effectively by moving the IoT to distributed investigate accidents. The number of sensors placed and the
ledger technology. The blockchain is one of the most well- rate at which data is gathered impact the quantity of data
known and widely used distributed ledger technologies. created by a smart home. In order to generate relevant data that
Integrating IoT with blockchain technology can provide a slew may subsequently be recorded in the blockchain, adequate
of advantages. As a consequence, this paper addresses every sensor data sampling is necessary. A blockchain's data volume
element of combining IoT with blockchain technologies. This determines its packet overhead, memory overhead, and
paper discusses the integration of blockchain technology with computational overhead. To achieve both IoT security and
the Internet of Things system and focuses on its advantages. IoT memory minimization in a smart home scenario, we suggest a
and blockchain integration can work together to address some sliding window blockchain architecture.
of the system's issues. Blockchain technology is then provided
so that the IoT can illustrate how different characteristics of the
BC technology may be utilized in different IoT applications
B. Blockchain challenges in the Internet of Things and
itssolutions
In research as well as in industry, the Internet of Things
(IoT) usage is increasing at a higher rate while security and
privacy concerns are still major issues [12]. The Decentralized
architecture of IoT and its resource limitation on the bulk of
components cannot be supported by traditional security and
privacy measures they stand to be inadequate. Blockchain
(BC)-based cryptocurrency Bitcoin technology supports
security and anonymity in peer-to-peer networks with
topologies similar to the Internet of Things (IoT), and it has
recently been used [13]. But BC, on the other hand, is
computationally expensive and has significant bandwidth and
latency overheads, making them unsuitable for IoT devices. Fig.2. Proposed Architecture [1]
This document proposes a solution for IoT architecture that is
secure, private, lightweight, and based on BC technology. A It is crucial to make sure that the data created by IoT is safe
sample practical example of a larger IoT applied to a smart since the Internet of Things is transforming how we live.
home is reviewed and presented. Smart homes, network Traditional centralized security algorithms are, however,
coverage, and cloud storage that coordinate data flow with the infeasible due to the limited CPU, memory, and energy
BC for privacy and security are all part of the proposed resources of IoT devices. To address the limitations of IoT
architecture. devices while maintaining security, a sliding window
blockchain is proposed. Blockchain technology helps to
C. Challenges and Future Opportunities for the IoT in provide security to IoT devices because it supports
Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) decentralized data storage, which means that data is stored
The number of elderly people in many societies is across multiple nodes rather than a single centralized server, as
growing faster than the number of working-age people. If opposed to centralized storage, in which data is stored at a
independent living is to be maintained, supporting mental and single location. Decentralized data storage allows users to
physical health is becoming increasingly important. To detect receive data from any available node and provides strong
users' health status, it has been considered necessary to detect security by requiring all nodes' hash values to be verified by a
their daily activities, monitor them, and then provide single data store. The verification of the hashes of all nodes is
immediate healthcare services. Yet so far, extensive research computationally intensive and cannot be applied to IoT devices
has been conducted in the aforementioned areas, which are with limited memory, CPU, and energy consumption. With the
commonly referred to as Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) [9]. Sliding Window technique, there is a fixed window size in
The term IoT has recently become popular, referring to the which all Blockchain transaction hash values are stored. If the
interconnection of all available physical and virtual resources window size is exceeded, old transaction blocks are removed,
to collect and exchange data. Thus, IoT has become widely leaving only the recent blocks. As a result of this technique,
used for the collection of health information for the provision memory storage and data transfer overhead are reduced.
of reliable and effective healthcare services, especially for the
elderly and the chronically ill. IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The home screen of the simulation of the implementation of
III. PROPOSED METHODOLOGY this project is shown in Fig 3. In the window, up to 5 blocks are
This work proposes a blockchain architecture for IoT created to analyze SWBC's performance. This analysis
settings, focusing on smart home applications [10]. The state of evaluates how long it takes to solve the Proof-of-Work, create
a smart home is monitored, analyzed, and reported. In order to and add a block, and validate that block. Once a sensor data
automate and keep track of internal processes, smart houses block has been encrypted, the owner creates it and then sends it
employ IoT-connected equipment [5]. In a smart home, sensors to other miners for validation. A higher difficulty level results
allow you to monitor and analyze energy usage in real time and in a longer time spent creating and adding blocks. A blockchain

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 2022 5th International Conference on Advances in Science and Technology (ICAST)

window containing n blocks is stored in an IoT device, while

the entire blockchain is stored in private cloud storage.

Fig.6. Blocks stored at IoT

V. EXTENSION
Fig.3. Home screen In extension work, IoT will not process data from a sensor
for storage in Blockchain if that sensor produces the same
As shown in Fig.4. all red circles identify home IoT, and random data over time intervals, which saves both energy and
the blue circle represents the IoT cloud, which will receive data memoryas shown in Fig.7
from IoT when the IoT window fills. There is a maximum
packet transmission rate of 15 and a maximum window size of
5 for blockchains, which can hold data up to 5 blocks. If this
limit is exceeded, the old block will be removed and sent to the
cloud for storage.

Fig.7. SWBC simulation extension algorithm

Fig.4: SWBC simulation
VI. CONCLUSION
Fig.5 shows data generated by Advanced Standard
Encryption(AES) algorithm and then displays the mining Fig. 6 In this paper, we propose an IoT network resource-
shows thelatest recent block stored in IoT memory constrained sliding window that reduces memory overhead and
limits computation overhead Based on the experimental results,
the following observations were made: firstly, for each level of
difficulty, PoW becomes exponentially more time-consuming.
Second, as the number of miners increases, the time it takes to
add blocks increases as well. Third, as the window size
increases, the computation time for hashes grows linearly. To
conclude, adding new blocks to a blockchain is faster because
the difficulty of each block is chosen at random. Utilizing the
sliding window's n-block attributes to generate the block hash
enhances security.

Fig.5. AES encrypted data

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 2022 5th International Conference on Advances in Science and Technology (ICAST)

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