When Data Fly: An Open Data Trading System in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

Communication between vehicles and their environment (i.e., vehicle-to-everything or V2X communication) in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) has become of particular importance for smart cities. However, economic challenges, such as the cost incurred by data sharing (e.g., due to power consumption), hinder the integration of data sharing in open systems into smart city applications, such as dynamic environmental zones. Moving from open data sharing to open data trading can address the economic challenges and incentivize vehicle drivers to share their data. In this context, integrating distributed ledger technology (DLT) into open systems for data trading is promising for reducing the transaction cost of payments in data trading, avoiding dependencies on third parties, and guaranteeing openness. However, because the integration of DLT conflicts with the short available communication time between fast moving objects in VANETs, it remains unclear how open data trading in VANETs using DLT should be designed to be viable. In this work, we present a system design for data trading in VANETs using DLT. We measure the required communication time for data trading between a vehicle and a roadside unit in a real scenario and estimate the associated cost. Our results show that the proposed system design is technically feasible and economically viable.

Tackling Challenges of Robustness Measures for Agent Collaboration in Open Multi-Agent Systems

“…Our study indicates that DLT is promising to improve robustness of coalitions, for example, the provision of tamper-resistant storage for ratings in reputation systems and improved scalability regarding increasing or decreasing requests for ratings stored in the distributed ledger [14]. However, several DLT characteristics contradict the requirements of OMASs.…”

“…Thereby, AAs need less data about other AAs to predict their behaviors. The measure collaterals requires AAs to deposit a specified collateral prior to joining a coalition, for example, an amount of coins of a cryptocurrency [14]. If an AA in the coalition turns out to be not reliable, its collateral can be distributed to other AAs in the coalition or destroyed [59].…”

“…To address the shortcomings of extant robustness measures, technological advances have been applied, including distributed ledger technology (DLT) [9,10], semantic web technology [11], and machine learning [12]. For instance, DLT-based reputation systems can store ratings in a tamper-resistant way and make ratings publicly verifiable [13,14]. Using such technologies has revealed a multitude of potential solutions to address challenges related to robustness measures, for example, using distributed ledger technology (DLT) to store rating on AAs in a tamper-resistant way [13].…”

Challenges and Common Solutions in Smart Contract Development

“…(S.3.1) Identity Service: To manage entities' digital identities and their associated pseudonyms, prior research has proposed implementations for decentralized identity management (e.g., [86]- [88]). In these implementations, an identity publishes personal information about itself in a decentralized identifier (DID) document and stores the hash value of the DID document on a distributed ledger so that the integrity of the DID document is provable.…”

“…Verifiable claims consist of an assertion to express an affirmation or denial of the information in the DID document and an attestation to make the claim verifiable. The more verifiable claims that exist per DID document, the likelier it is that the information contained is accurate [86], [88].…”