The Role of Blockchain in 6G: Challenges, Opportunities and Research Directions

Abstract

The world is going through a fundamental transformation with the emergence of the intelligent information era.The key domains linked with human life such as healthcare, transport, entertainment, and smart cities are expected to elevate the quality of service with high-end user experience. Therefore, the telecommunication infrastructure has to meet unprecedented service level requirements such as ultra high data rates and traffic volume for the prominent future applications such as Virtual Reality (VR), holographic communications, and massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC). There are significant challenges identifiable in the communication context to match the envisaged demand surge. The blockchain and distributed ledger technology is one of the most disruptive technology enablers to address most of the current limitations and facilitate the functional standards of 6G. In this work, we explore the role of blockchain to address formidable challenges in 6G, future application opportunities and potential research directions.

The role of 5G for digital healthcare against COVID-19 pandemic: Opportunities and challenges

“…MEC integrated with 5G, can be used to process the data locally to improve the scalability of the systems as well as security and privacy of collected data. Moreover, MEC integrated with 5G can easily be used to implement decentralized solutions via Blockchain [17] , [18] . The delivery of items to the final destination can be performed via Beyond LineOf-Sight (BLOS) UAV guided by the 5G network.…”

The Fight Against the COVID-19 Pandemic With 5G Technologies

“…Goods equipped with special tags connect directly to 5G system increasing the transparency. A decentralization of the blockchain can be implemented easily with the MEC [22]. Beyond Line-Of-Sight (BLOS) drones [23] connected to 5G network can deliver the goods to the final destinations from a distribution point.…”

“…In addition, lightweight and scalable security mechanisms must be designed to secure MIoTs. Encrypted data transmission and distributed security solutions such as blockchain can prevent attackers gain access to the network and protect the collected user data [22]. For a holistic security and privacy framework, these solutions can be built upon and/or integrated into a smart and trustworthy 5G security platform for the overall 5G ecosystem [43].…”

The shift to 6G communications: vision and requirements

“…Blockchain is bringing the revolution to some of the huge industries such as finance, supply chain management, banking, and international remittance [77]. The concept of blockchain is opening new avenues to conduct businesses.…”

“…The demand for massive connectivity in 6G has triggered the network resource management such as power distribution, spectrum sharing, computational resources distribution as the main challenges [61,77]. Blockchain can provide solutions to the 6G network in these domains by managing the relationship between operators and users with the application of smart contracts.…”