Enabling Fog–Blockchain Computing for Autonomous-Vehicle-Parking System: A Solution to Reinforce IoT–Cloud Platform for Future Smart Parking

Abstract

With the advent of modern technologies, including the IoT and blockchain, smart-parking (SP) systems are becoming smarter and smarter. Similar to other automated systems, and particularly those that require automation or minimal interaction with humans, the SP system is heuristic in delivering performances, such as throughput in terms of latency, efficiency, privacy, and security, and it is considered a long-term cost-effective solution. This study looks ahead to future trends and developments in SP systems and presents an inclusive, long-term, effective, and well-performing smart autonomous vehicle parking (SAVP) system that explores and employs the emerging fog-computing and blockchain technologies as robust solutions to strengthen the existing collaborative IoT–cloud platform to build and manage SP systems for autonomous vehicles (AVs). In other words, the proposed SAVP system offers a smart-parking solution, both indoors and outdoors, and mainly for AVs looking for vacant parking, wherein the fog nodes act as a middleware layer that provides various parking operations closer to IoT-enabled edge devices. To address the challenges of privacy and security, a lightweight integrated blockchain and cryptography (LIBC) module is deployed, which is functional at each fog node, to authorize and grant access to the AVs in every phase of parking (e.g., from the parking entrance to the parking slot to the parking exit). A proof-of-concept implementation was conducted, wherein the overall computed results, such as the average response time, efficiency, privacy, and security, were examined as highly efficient to enable a proven SAVP system. This study also examined an innovative pace, with careful considerations to combatting the existing SP-system challenges and, therefore, to building and managing future scalable SP systems.

Connected and Automated Vehicles: Infrastructure, Applications, Security, Critical Challenges, and Future Aspects

“…A lightweight, integrated Blockchain and cryptography (LIBC) module at each fog node authorizes and grants AV access in every parking phase to meet privacy and security concerns. A proof-of-concept implementation of the proposed SAVP system showed that its average response time, efficiency, privacy, and security were very good, opening the way for a proven system [136,137]. The authors in [138] proposed a cross-domain solution for the Cognitive Internet of Vehicles to achieve ultra-flow delay and ultra-high dependability in autonomous driving.…”

A Literature Review for Understanding the Development of Smart Parking Systems

“…The study improves the current IoT-cloud platform for AVs utilizing fog-blockchain technologies, putting a special emphasis on QoS, low latency, system efficiency, and security. The deployment of the inclusive, long-term, successful, and high-performing SAVP system makes an SP solution possible [17]. For IoTRec, a system that enables drivers to assess predicted availability of parking spaces and routes.…”

Autonomous Mutual Authentication Protocol in the Edge Networks

“…The detection of data-tampering attack is performed here using data mass and scoring for anomaly detection as a part of intrusion detection. An autonomous vehicle smart-parking system with the fog–blockchain architecture is presented by Shahzad A. et al [ 28 ]. Smart parking helps to recognize the parking location with the help of fog nodes to IoT, the proof-of-concept by lightweight blockchain and a cryptographic module is utilized.…”