1

Blockchain Enabled Industrial Internet of Things

Technology
Shanshan Zhao, Shancang Li, Member, IEEE, and Yufeng Yao

Abstract—The emerging blockchain technology shows promis- and increasing efficiency in smart enterprises, where smart
ing potential to enhance industrial systems and the Internet industrial facilities and human are seamlessly interconnected.
of things (IoT) by providing applications with redundancy, It can be seen that the IIoT will make significant impact on
immutable storage, and encryption. In the past a few years,
many more applications in industrial IoT (IIoT) have emerged existing business models in many areas, including manufactur-
and the blockchain technologies have attracted huge amounts of ing, energy, transportation, agriculture, retail, and many more.
attention from both industrial and academic researchers. In this Despite of the aforementioned potentials, the IIoT is also
paper we address the integration of blockchain and IIoT from the facing a number of challenges [9], [10], [11], [12], including
industrial prospective. A blockchain enabled IIoT framework is
introduced and involved fundamental techniques are presented. interoperability, devices security and privacy, silo mentality,
Moreover, main applications and key challenges are addressed. A standardization, etc. The complicated IIoT system exposes
comprehensive analysis for the most recent research trends and industrial control system (ICS), process control systems, and
open issues is provided associated with the blockchain enabled other operational technologies to potential cyber attacks, hack-
IIoT. tivism, employment sabotage and other security risks. The
Index Terms—Blockchain, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), main challenges that the IIoT are facing as followings [13],
Security and Privacy, Social Systems. [14], [15], [16] can be summarized as follows:
1) Interoperability, it is the biggest challenge in the
I. I NTRODUCTION interconnected IIoT systems. The drive to seamlessly
S an emerging technology, the Internet of Things (IoT) bridge the operation technologies (OT) and information
A is becoming a significantly increased research theme and
opening up new revenue streams for industrial applications
technologies could be obstructed by both technologies
challenges and the lack of common software interfaces,
[1] and social IoT environments [2]. In the past few years, the standard data formats;
utilization of IoT solutions in industrial enterprises have grown 2) Device reliability and durability, for devices in a harsh
in many sectors [3], including financial services, insurance, industrial environment (such as manufacturing, energy
manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, energy, government, and utilities, transportation and retail, etc.), facilities re-
and real estate etc. The IIoT focuses on the use of IoT in liability and durability are very important. This includes
above sectors, which integrates emerging technologies, such the remote access control, reliability, connectivity, and
as smart sensors, robots, machine-to-machine (M2M), big data reliable services provision;
analytics, artificial intelligence, and much more into traditional 3) Security and privacy issues, including authentication
industrial procedures [4], [5]. The increasing IIoT is expected and access control in ICS security, data protection and
to produce extraordinary economic growth opportunities and privacy preservation under data protection regulations, as
competitive advantages in industry by conducting digital trans- well as the protection and security of human, industrial
formation to create new smart industrial enterprises and build assets, and critical infrastructures;
the next generation smart systems [6]. 4) Emerging technologies and skills of staff, while new
As a subset of the broader IoT, the IIoT is dramatically technologies allow higher levels of scalability, manufac-
changing the way industries work by interconnecting facilities, turability, and autonomously collaborate with other sys-
systems and creating new business models [7], [8]. The IIoT tems, meanwhile the lack of the skills and understanding
platforms are able to provide industry sectors with connectiv- to exploit IoT and big data will bring with challenges;
ity, intelligent big data analytic, edge and cloud computing, 5) Silo mentality, break silos between different disciplines
and application development. Using emerging and cutting- and departments in industry form another important
edge technologies, the IIoT promises to change the existing challenge;
industrial production procedure by optimising manufacturing 6) Scalability and latency (i.e. verification speed), are
procedure, enhancing customer experiences, reducing costs two main challenges in blockchain technologies (e.g., in
Blockchain a block with size of 1MB takes 10 minutes).
Dr. Zhao and Prof. Yao are with Department of Engineering Design and 7) Standardization, lack of standards is also a main chal-
Mathematics, University of the West of England, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK e- lenge in blockchain, in addition to unclear legal and reg-
mail: {shanshan.zhao, yufeng.yao}@uwe.ac.uk).
Dr. Li is with the Department of Computer Science and Creative Tech- ulatory framework, lacking confidence and techniques,
nologies, University of the West of England, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK e-mail: and many more.
[email protected].
Manuscript received January 18, 2019. The emerging blockchain technologies have been gaining
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enormous attentions from both industrial and academic staff, promises in accurate and consistent real-time data processing,
which promises to change all aspects of digital business sustainable and green practices, predictive maintenance (PdM),
in industry and solve the aforementioned challenges. The etc. According to [4], [20], the IIoT will add £10.69bn to
blockchain is a decentralised ledger technology which makes the global economy by 2030 [4]. It is undoubted that the
use of cryptography to securely host applications, store data, IIoT will benefit all industrial sectors, including agriculture,
and exchange information [17]. The blockchain is expected to manufacturing, energy and utilities, municipal services, etc.
make a profound effect and influence over the existing IIoT by increasing efficiency, developing new business models,
platform. creating of new revenue streams, and improving safety and
In the past a few years, the sharing economy (or digital risk management. Figure 1 shows the basic demands in IIoT
economy in the West) has increased significantly (e.g. in systems, from which it is noted that the trustiness over the
China, the sharing economy is expected to comprise 10% of supply chain can significantly affect the running of each
the whole GDP by 2020 [18]). The introduction of blockchain participants. The blockchain can provide industrial sectors
will significantly increase IIoT data sharing economy. The with intrinsic features of transparency, traceability, respect of
blockchain-enabled IIoT will bring the world a huge business human rights, and compliance of regulations in an efficient
opportunities in secure and reliable data sharing economy. Ac- and economical way [21].
cording to [18], [17], the market for IIoT will reach £93.63bn
by 2021 and it will impact upon global GDP as £10.82tn
A. Blockchain Platforms for IIoT
by 2030. The IIoT will create up to 60% of these values
in the transformational opportunities, including new business In IIoT systems, the IIoT platform plays a key role that
models and revenue streams. The core focus of IIoT is on can deliver smart connected operations, connect assets, and
operational efficiency, along with cost optimisation and linking enable IIoT with following capabilities: connectivity, big data
data islands of automatic. However, many problems such as analytic, and application development. To solve the above
data interoperability, data integration, privacy issues, etc., are challenges, the IIoT platform should consider following re-
the barrier to IIoT. The blockchain is expected to enable quirements: (1) Visibility of Asset; (2) Integration of tech-
reliable and secure data streams marketplaces in industry [5]. nologies; (3) Ageing workforce; (4) Data islands; and (5)
Together with blockchain, the big data, smart robots, IoT, Cyber security. Meanwhile, the IIoT can also significantly
and artificial intelligent (AI) are five key technologies that affect customers or users behaviours. Most existing industrial
drive the next industrial revolution. The blockchain-enabled facilities, such as micro-grids, smart-grid IoT, vehicular ad-hoc
IIoT will play a big role in many areas, including manufactur- networks (VANETs), etc., designed are unable to connect to
ing, transportation, logistics, retail, and utilities. Meanwhile, IIoT with built-in intelligence, which need interfaces to com-
other sectors, such as healthcare, energy and government, will municate with IIoT. On the other hand, the operators in IIoT
also benefit from blockchain. are assisted with new technologies such as augmented reality
The blockchain is a decentralised ledger technology (DLT) (AR), which can provide better interacting and forecasting
which makes the use of cryptography to securely store data process behaviours therefore become simplified and operate
decentralised and immutable, without a central authority. In at improved efficiency [22], [23], [24], [21].
fact, a number of blockchain enabled IIoT systems are in The Bitcoin was the first blockchain platform that provides
developing in many industrial areas, including security, fi- a traceable, cheap and reliable cryptocurrrency exchange way.
nance, logistics, etc. We will explore in details how blockchain In IIoT domain, smart IoT devices can employ Bitcoin-based
will affect and influence over the IIoT in the next following techniques to record and exchange transactional activities. The
Sections. The main contributions of this work are in threefold: Ethereum platform etherum virtual machine (EVM) is widely
• We introduce the integration of blockchain and the IIoT used in IoT with built-in smart contract features and flexible
to solve the challenges highlighted above. consensus strategy, in which the smart contract offers IIoT
• Aims to solve the tasks of providing trust between the applications with down compatible. The hyperledger [25] is a
components of industrial IoT and business models. For popular open-source blockchain platform developed by IBM,
this purpose, a blockchain enabled IIoT architecture is which offers distributed industrial components with consensus
proposed which combines the IoT platforms and the and membership strategies and can well support IBM Watson
blockchain. IoT Platforms. The hyperledger can significantly speed up IIoT
• This paper also presents smart contract for processing applications [26].
and storing data related to the interaction between com- More blockchain platforms for IIoT, including the mul-
ponents in the IIoT environment. tichain [27], [28], Litecoin [29], Lisk [30], Quorum [31],
In next Section the background and current researches are HDAC [32], etc. provide IIoT applications with traceability,
presented. trustworthiness, etc. These blockchain platforms can be mea-
sured using energy consumptions, cup utilization, memory
II. BACKGROUND AND C URRENT R ESEARCH utilization, the size of block, etc.
In the past decade, the IIoT has attracted enormous re- Figure 1 shows a proposed architecture of an IIoT [4], in
search attentions from both academia and industries and is which the sensing layer refers the implementation facilities;
becoming one of key technologies to enhance manufactur- the network layer provides IIoT components with connectivity;
ing and industrial processes [19]. The IIoT presents great the service layer offer cloud and big data analytics services;
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and the application interface layer provides application devel- network that connects a huge number of devices, a large
opment, respectively. number of vulnerabilities are facing by the IIoT, when new
devices are connected to IIoT, the vulnerabilities will increase
exponentially. Meanwhile, the cryptographic algorithms have
B. Blockchain vs IIoT
a limited lifetime before they have broken, which means
The emerging blockchain technology shows great potentials the current secure algorithms can get hacked and if hackers
for the fourth industrial revolution, which could make dramatic adapt and learn more sophisticated hack technologies. Another
impact on all sectors of the economy and will further trans- reason is that there are many devices are resource-constrained
form it through the top notch efficiency [4]. The blockchain in the IIoT (e.g., smart sensors, micro-controllers, etc.)
shows great potential to overcome the interoperability in IIoT.
According to the IDC, up to 20% of IoT deployments will
III. B LOCKCHAIN - ENABLED II OT A RCHITECTURE
offer blockchain-enabled services and more than 10% of global
GDP will be re-alted to the blockchain-enabled systems by In general, the blockchain nodes can be categorised into:
2027 [33]. The reasons that IIoT technologies can be well full node (FN) and lightweight node (LN):
complemented by blockchain are: • Full node, it can download and check all blocks and
1) In IIoT, the decentralised nature of blockchain technol- transactions. FN can act as mining node and create blocks
ogy will play a key role in the communication between for the blockchain.
two untrusted devices to keep devices information about • Lightweight node, due to the restrict resources, a LN
their interactions, state, and digest of exchanged data. does can only store and process part of data on the
2) The blockchain can significantly reduce the risks that blockchain. In IIoT, lightweight smart devices (sensors)
customers are facing and save the cost in business can serve as a LN and can propose new transactions that
processes. will be propagated between nodes and eventually will be
3) The blockchain for IIoT should be designed as a basis added to a block in the blockchain.
for application that involve transaction and interaction,
including smart contracts, etc. A. System Architecture
As discussed above, the IIoT features to build the intelligent The blockchain can enable IIoT systems connect untrusted
smart ecosystems of IIoT solutions, while the blockchain devices in a distributed and verifiable manner. Figure 2 shows
can address the IIoT interoperability, reliability, and security an example of architecture of a blockchain enabled IIoT
challenges. Introducing blockchain into IIoT will enable indus- system, which contains following six main components:
trial enterprises and manufactures to register and verify both
their physical entities (facilities, products, etc.) and services 1) IIoT resource networks, including the resources that
features (i.e. smart contract) in an irrefutable and decentralised IIoT can provided
network (i.e. public blockchain). Table I summarises the main 2) Blockchain network, which records all information in
applications of blockchain technology in industry. the systems onto a decentralized private network
3) Management hub, mainly focus on the manage and
maintenance of the whole system.
C. Blockchain will Revolutionise IoT 4) Key servers, generate the necessary cryptographic keys
In industry, the inexpensive data-keeping and accounting for nodes authentications and data encryption.
blockchain idea can initiate innovative technologies that will 5) Clients, are the users that request access to the IIoT
allow enterprises and individuals to create crypto curren- resources.
cies and accounting programs that will revolutionise their 6) Smart contract, provides system interfaces between
respective industries. In general, the blockchain will offer components in IIoT and blockchain.
enterprises and individuals a safer and more reliable alternative An IIoT system mainly contains both light nodes (LN )
to shipping and receiving goods. In logistics, the blockchain (i.e., smart sensors, RFID readers, smart meter, etc.) and
will allow companies to keep the shipping records across powerful full nodes F N (such as industrial computer, data
multiple devices and out of criminal hands. By allowing supply analysis server, edge-computing servers, etc). In IIoT, the
change to operate more efficiently and with better trust, the LN can connect peers running a F N in order to send and
blockchain can improve the interoperability in logistics. For receive transactions, the LN can only store minimal data about
individuals, the blockchain will keep track of what and where blockchain but can send output requests encoded in CoAP
they have spent, which will keep an individual’s credentials messages to one or more F N using JSON-RPC over http
safe and grant them a peace of mind that is not afforded by that is understandable by the blockchain network. Then, the
analogy systems [36] F N sends back a response that can be verified by LN by
In IIoT, the security of ICS is a big challenge [18]. The only checking its own token (data, states, etc.), if passed,
security nature of blockchain can offer ICS in IIoT a safer the LN proceeds to construct the transactions. If failed, the
environment to tampering, where blockchain can create a wide LN will return an invalid response with modified output, as
range of cyber security opportunities that would affect entire shown in Figure 3. It can be seen that a LN can connect
ecosystems. For example, the blockchain can ensure the entire to peers running a full node in order to send and receive
ecosystems secure and irreversible. Since IIoT is such a huge transactions. The LN can inquire remote FN for outputs and
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Fig. 1. An architecture of an IIoT platform [4]

TABLE I
A PPLICATIONS OF BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY IN INDUSTRY

Use Case Examples Description

IBM/Maersk Containers tracking in shipping
Supply chain management Provenance Product information recording
[34] Everledger Certificates and transaction history
IT Services ConsenSys Build on request
Blockchain First Etherum, Bitcoin Develop using the tools provided by the blockchain
Energy platform Siemens StromDAO Have already been realised The Merkle tree
IoT IoTA is a cryptocurrency designed for the distributed fee-less micro-transactions for IoT
Vertical solutions Axoni, Chain, R3, itBit, Industry specific
Clearmatics
IoT device identification over blockchain
Factom Iris
Sensos that timestamp data on the blockchain to save them from manipulation
IoT and Industry 4.0 Super computing systems
Platform to save selected IoT data on a private blockchain and share it with all involved
IBM Watson IoT
business partners
Genesis of Things Platfrom to enable 3D printing via smart contract
3D Print
Moog Aircraft group Ensuring safe 3D-print of aircraft parts via blockchain [35]

then transmit its transactions. In IIoT environment, a LN can 3) T okenGen(c) : T 0 ← T ∪T okenGen(r, c), is the token
establish connections with multiple untrusted FN to support generated for user c related to resource r;
0
output retrieval, proof generation, updates to the structure, and 4) SevReq(c) : Sreq ← Sreq ∪ SevReq(c, r);
0
conflict resolution. However, to improve the security between 5) Resp(c, r) : Rres ← Rres ∪ Resp(c, r);
the protocols, more sophisticated mechanism needs to be 6) AddAccess(c, R0 , T 0 , Rreq
0
) define the access control
developed. added to c
In blockchain building , the top node (root FN) contains the 7) DeregisterClient(key, U ) : U 0 ← U ∩ U (key)
greatest index of all outputs, and is stored at the client. Sibling 8) DeResReg(R, r) : R0 ← (R − r) ∩ Rkey .
nodes are concatenated and hashed to form the parent node.
The maximum index between the siblings is passed onto the
parent nodes. When new nodes are added into an IIoT, the From the above descriptions it can be seen that the clients
clients needs to quickly work out which server is lying. The and resources will be identified by their public keys and the
earliest point of disagreement can be found in O(logN ). Once access to resources requested by c can be added depends the
the source of conflict is found, it is easy to find the lying server response of the blockchain.
by checking the hash. Each FN stores limited information such
as PoW headers, Root Hash, Owntran . For a more complicated IIoT system, the distributed ledger
technology blockchain allows digital information to be dis-
tributed and immutable, therefore, blockchain has the potential
B. System Interfaces to be a good anti-corruption and fraud tool. To keep privacy,
many IIoT systems require to (1) keep the sender and receiver
This section will discuss the interfaces in the blockchain-
identities confidential from peers, (2) carry out the transactions
enabled IIoT system. It can be seen in Figure 2 that the
between two participants to be masked with the actual spent
interactions between components are defined in smart contract,
coin, and (3) hide the denominations in transactions.
as following:
1) ResReg(d); R0 ← R ∪ R(d), resources registration For a large scale IIoT, it is very important to guarantee
in blockchain, R(d) is the resources that device d can the scalability of the system. Figure 4 shows an example of
provide; a multiple chain blockchain based IIoT system, which pro-
2) CReg(c); U 0 ← U ∪ R(c), U 0 is the registered clients vides secure authentication, smart contract, and transactional
for resource R; chained in a single IIoT platform.
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Blockchain Network

Client Registration(Dr)
IIoT Service Client Resource Registration

Management Hub Deregistration

Keys Server

Smart contract
Data Transmis sion
IIoT Resource Platform

Fig. 2. Blockchain enabled IIoT Architecture

industrial devices, for example, for some ICS systems, the

micro-controllers should be able to protect its chip memory
using a memory-protect unit (MPU), and only approved cryp-
tographic algorithms can be used in these systems. However,
Full Node (FN1) a challenge is that the chips manufacturers do not like to
share their details of the solution to others. In this case, the
blockchain based IIoT platforms are expected to secure the
IIoT ecosystems in a matter of difficult to hack but easy to
Full Node (FN2) Lightweight Node (LN)
verify.
... 2) Public Device Blockchain: A number of device
Sends response
Sends output requests blockchain have been developed for IIoT, in which an ir-
refutable and decentralised public blockchain are used to
LN data retrieval from multiple FNs secure register and record the devices to develop a secure and
over HTTPS
Full Node (FNn) tamper proof way. The blockchain-enabled infrastructure in
IIoT will enable an automation of cyber-defense. When attacks
are detected, the IIoT platforms are able to automatically
Fig. 3. LN data retrieval from multiple FNs
thwart them. Most existing IIoT security systems operate as a
set of individual tools and are neither automated nor integrated.
C. Integrating Blockchain into Existing IIoT
The blockchain is able to securely exchange and store data D. Main Features in Blockchain-enabled IIoT
from components in IIoT systems without the need for an 1) Interoperability: As discussed above, the interoperability
intermediary. The secure nature of blockchain will enable is a big challenge in IIoT. In many existing IoT systems,
IIoT systems more dependable and safe, which can change the interoperability is managed at the application level, where
the way the data is being deal with in IIoT. The features of the operators are required to be proficient in different smart
blockchain makes it promises in creating new business models, operations. However, a huge volume of data will be created
such as data streaming sharing, financial, manufacturing, smart from interconnected facilities in IIoT, which requires a higher
healthcare, etc. The decentralized collaborative IIoT systems level of interoperability. Lack of interoperability among exist-
can sense, share, and update data in a reliable manner that can ing field systems is a major challenge of IIoT. Existing OT
be verified easily. Meanwhile, the blockchain can well manage system largely work in silos that can increase the running
and secure digital relationships of participants in IIoT and costs and complexity of IIoT deployments. To bridge the
with the decentralized authenticity, trustiness issues in IIoT gaps of shared data between smart facilities from different
between multiple parties can be fixed. In the past few years, manufactures (or even in an organization) is always very
a number of blockchain enabled IIoT use cases have been challenging. The blockchain promises to establish seamless
reported, including manufacturing, financial, energy industries, links between IIoT assets operating in different data protocols.
insurances, etc. However, it requires the developers to be proficient in different
1) Solutions: It is obvious that the ecosystems in IIoT are smart contract language, API, or third part of tools. Figure 5
not turely secure. A commonly approach is to use microchips shows an example of IIoT architecture to convert real-time
to streamline IoT security. Secure microchips are required for data into business insights.
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Authenticated Admin
IIoT Platform

Root Chain

Smart Contract
Smart Contract IIoT Gateway

Sub-Blockchain Chain

IIoT Devices

Authenticated User

Fig. 4. Multi-chained IIoT Platform

IIoT Platform #2 IIoT Platform #3

No Business Relathionship
IIoT Platform #1 IIoT Platform #2

Authorized
IIoT Platform #3

Authenticated User

Blockchain Networks

Authenticated User IIoT Resources

IIoT Resources

(b)
(a)

Fig. 5. IIoT architecture to convert real-time data into business insights (Interoperability)

Interoperability in IIoT is often focused around the data enabled IIoT system stores authorization rules, user-associated
exchanges between business entities, for example, multiple public keys, and data access audit logs. Each organization will
companies follow the same standards. The interoperability maintain the public key with their own user index system using
denotes the ability of different IIoT systems and applications to smart contract-driven authorization rules.
communicate, exchange data, and use the information that has In Figure 5 (a), data interfaces are entity-to-entity, in Fig-
been exchanges [19]. The interoperability can reduce duplicate ure 5 (b), data exchange using user-to-entity, the entity can
information and improve the efficiency, which is necessary in directly access the data related products. In the blockchain-
reducing cost, comprehensive. As shown in the example in enabled solution, the product can retrieve data directly from
Fig 5, the interoperability is generally centred around business supplier #1, however, through blockchain-enabled smart con-
entities. tracts, the product can authorize sharing of product data
In the blockchain-enabled IIoT, as shown in Fig 5, the between supplier#1 and supplier#2, which does not have
authenticated users can directly retrieve data from platform a formal business relationship. The blockchain layer stores
#2. It can be seen that with built-in smart contracts, a user can authorization rules, along with other data like public key, as
authorize sharing of his data between two platforms without well as data access audit logs.
a formal business relationship: #2 and #3. The blockchain- It can be seen that the blockchain can significantly improve
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the interoperability, given these challenges, it remains to be A. Identification and Tracking Technologies
seen whether blockchain can facilitate the transition from user- The IIoT platform is a key component in IIoT, which
centric to data-centric data sharing. involves following key technologies: (1) Device identifica-
2) Greater transparency: The blockchain technologies can tion and tracking technologies in IIoT environment, which
make the data exchange, transactional data exchange more include pseudo-identity generation for IIoT devices, users, and
transparent. As a decentralized ledger, all network participants services using public-key based pseudo-identities generation.
share the same documentations as opposed to individual (2)Communication Technologies in IIoT, in which the M2M
copies, which can only be updated through consensus and each communication technologies are the main stream. RolaWAN,
participant must agree on. Any change at a single transaction Sigfox, et al are also useful. (3) Networks Technologies in IIoT,
record would require the alternation of all subsequent records include the 5G, mobile network, industrial sensor networks,
and the collusion of the entire network. As a result, data on etc.; and (4) Service management in IIoT, OSGi platform, et
a blockchain is accessible for all participants and is more al.
accurate, consistent and transparent than when it is pushed public
IDu,s u,s
= G(pksig u,s
, pksig ) (1)
through paper-heavy processes.
3) Improved traceability: The blockchain technology offers in which u and s are secure channel.
an opportunities to solve important glitches in traceability and
provenance challenges in the IIoT. Due to the complexity of in- B. Blockchain across IIoT Nodes
teractions between the stakeholders in traditional supply chain, As discussed in Section II, a blockchain system
it is very challenge to accurately track and link information to consists following main components: hash function,
material without any bias between different stakeholders. The transactions, cryptography key system,
traceability are very important, in global supply chain, drugs, address, ledgers, and blocks, etc.
clinical trials, food, etc. 1) Hash: is frequently used one way functions in
In blockchain enabled IIoT, the digital assets can be at- blockchain, e.g., SHA256, which consists of 2256 = 1077
tributed with a traceable resource unit (TRU), which is a col- possible digest values.
lection of one or more objects (goods) that cannot be individ- 2) Transaction: a transaction is a recording of exchange of
ually traced further. The availability of details of transactions assets (in IIoT, it could be data, digital values, units of inven-
in IIoT, including price, data, location, quality, certification, or tory, etc.) between two participants. Each block can contain
other relevant information within a smart contract can increase a number of verified and traceable transactions. A transaction
traceability of material through along the blockchain chain. record at list contains following information fields: amount,
The blockchain can offer precisely traceability for items in inputs, outputs, timestamp, transaction ID
a complex supply chain. The blockchain can offer a global, & hash, and more.
inclusive solution for traceability. 3) Public Key Infrastructure (PKI): PKI includes a pair of
4) Accountability vs Security Privacy: In IIoT, the account- mathematically related keys (public key and private key). The
ability is fundamentally to developing trust in IoT devices public key can be public for all participates, but the private
and IoT services [37], in which all transactional events, key remains secret for each participant in the blockchain
data, should be ultimately attributable to some user or agent. system. The private key is generally used to sign transactions
Accountability offers greater responsibility to both service in blockchain systems and public key is usually to generate ad-
providers and users or the third part authorities holding dress by working with hush functions. In blockchain, the PKI
services responsible for their functionality and behavior. In are designed in a manner of hard to hack but easy to verify.
blockchain, a digital pseudonyms (a hash of an address) is used PKI enables participants to efficiently verify transactions.
to provide some level of anonymity and each participant in the 4) Address: An address of a participant can be generated
network can trace the activities of an entity with a given unique from its’ public key using hash functions and some additional
ID, this property further contributes to make the blockchain information. For example, in Bitcoin system, the Bitcoin
an interesting tool to build a tamper-proof log to be used in address for each user is derived from its 256 bits private key
accountable IIoT. created using ECDSA standard)
The distributed ledger blockchain allows a secure platform,
distributed, tamper-free, requires a sufficiently large network Address = Base58(P rivatekey) (2)
of untrusted peer. The privacy in blockchain-enabled IIoT 5) Ledgers: a distributed ledger is a collection of verified
involves data ownership, data transparency and auditability, and traceable transactions that is spread across all participants
and fine-grained access control, including permissions of data in a blockchain system (can be nodes, or computing devices
and IoT devices in IIoT. or servers). Each node replicates and stores an identical copy
of the ledger. The ledgers can be programmed to record
IV. K EY E NABLING T ECHNOLOGIES everything of value (for example, in financial, it would be
In the past a few years, both the blockchain and the financial transactions, but in IIoT, it could be token, data, or
IIoT technology have been gaining enormous attention in even events). The ledger is maintaining through the use of
industry applications, including security, finance, logistics, distributed consensus mechanism.
manufacturing, smart grids, etc. This section summarises the Figure 6 describes an example of blockchain-enabled retail
key technologies in blockchain enabled IIoT. system, which records all transactional activities generated
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in the procedures. Figure 7 shows a simple example with 4 in which increasing the number of ‘leading zero‘ will cause
nodes IIoT, where each node keeps a ledger. For example, in the significant additional difficulty to solve the puzzle. It can
Figure 7, it can be seen that in step (1) a new transactional be seen that the PoW model combines the trustless consen-
event (TE) T E#(n + 1) is submitted to nodeB , (2) B will sus and cryptographic. In blockchain, the puzzle difficulty
then alert the rest nodes in the network (A, C, and D) that adjustable, i.e., in Bitcoin it is adjusted every two weeks.
a new transaction T E#(n + 1) has arrived; (3) at this point, The PoW has been widely used in a number of Blockchain
T E#(n + 1) is a pending transaction, and not included in applications, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Nonero,
a block within ledger; (4) A node will include T E#(n + 1) Dash, Litecoin, Dogecoin, etc. [38]
within a block and complete the systems’ required consensus 2) Proof of Stake (PoS): The PoS takes the proportional
method; (5) The new block that includes T E#(n + 1) will be ownership of the stake to participant in the validation of
distributed across the blockchain and all other ledgers will be transactions. Depending on the relative amount of tokens a
updated with the new block that includes T E#(n + 1). participant stakes, the probability they will be chosen as the
6) Chaining Blocks: Participants in blockchain may verify next block raise.
the most recent transactions that have not yet embedded into The blocks created by participants with more stake are
any prior blocks. A block can be seen as a page of the ledger more likely to be selected as next blocks. The PoS consensus
that integrates all submitted transactions and then propagates model does not need perform intensive computations and can
in the whole system, which will be mined by a mining node save energy consumptions, time, and resources. In PoS, no
and further added to the blockchain. Each block includes a block reward for the creator. A number of digital currencies
block header, which contains the hash of block header of use PoS, including Peercoin, ShadowCast, Nxt, BlackCoin,
the previous block. It can be seen that this is a nice way to NavCoin, et al. It is worthy noting that the Ethereum is
accurately chain all blocks in a blockchain system. Figure 8 planning to implement its PoS protocol Casper in 2018/19
shows an example of a simple blockchain header. A block [39]. The disadvantage of PoS is that it is quite complex to
typically consists of following data fields as shown in Table II implement PoS in a blockchain system.
3) Round Rubin (RR): In many complicated blockchain
In Table IV-C3, the Merkle tree is used to store the hash of systems, there might have different level of trust between
every transactions. Figure 9 shows an example of a Merkle tree participants (for example, in IIoT, different devices might
in blockchain system, in which the data0, data1 represent be in different security level). The PoW or PoS consensus
the transaction data, and hash denotes the hash function used model would be too complicated to determine, while a simple
in the blockchain. It can be seen that the root combines the round robin consensus model will be more effective, in which
hashed hash value of all transaction data, which is the hash of nodes take turns in creating blocks. In case a participant is
all previous hash-combination. unavailable in its turn, the RR model uses nounce to handle
turn to available participants to publish blocks. A problem of
C. Consensus Models in Blockchain RR model is that it does not work well in the permisionless
Many FNs serve as mining nodes which are competing to network due to malicious participants can cause odds of
gain the right of publishing the new generated block. However, subverting the network.
in the peer-to-peer blockchain system, when multiple FNs 4) PBFT: Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) algo-
generated new blocks at approximately the same time, a rithm have been well discussed in [18], [40], [41], [42], which
consensus mechanism will be applied to make a consensus works on the assumption that the number of fault participants
decision to select the next block of the blockchain. In less than one third of all participants.
general, consensus models in blockchain systems may have 5) Other Consensus Models: There are a number of con-
following features: (1) The initial state of the blockchain is sensus models have been proposed for blockchain systems,
agreed upon by all participants; (2) All participants agree to including Ripple, multichain, sieve, raft, proof of elapsed
the consensus method for adding new blocks to the blockchain; time, quorum, and Federated consensus. In practical, it is
(3) New block is chained to the previous block using the hash important to properly design consensus mechanisms depends
of block header; (4) All participants can easily verify every the requirements of applications.
block.
In this section, we summarised the commonly used consen- D. Smart Contract
sus models.
As discussed above, a smart contract is an automatically
1) Proof of Work (PoW): In the PoW model, a participant
executable script and enforceable by FNs and LNs that par-
can get the right to publish new block by solving a computa-
ticipate in the blockchain management [37]. In blockchain-
tionally expensive problem (for example, a puzzle in Bitcoin).
enabled IIoT, the interaction is mediated through smart con-
The problem is very difficult to solve, but easy to verify, which
tracts, where smart contracts can well encode and drive
enables other participants to easily validate the proposed next
business logic process. For IIoT, the smart contract can be
block. For example, in Bitcoin, each mining node computes
implemented in an efficient and more reliable decentralized
the hash (SHA256) for the entire block header that match
way.
“leading zero criteria”
In IIoT, smart contracts define the rules and penalties
0x00000 = SHA256(Hblock + N once) >> 59 (3) around an agreement in the same way that traditional
 9

User

Transaction Payment made via

recorded Blockchain

Transaction Product shipment

recorded
Trigger the coded
Transaction
term
recorded
Product Receipt
Transaction
recorded
Transaction N
Match all terms? Refund via
recorded
Blockchain

Transaction Y
recorded Smart contract
completed

Fig. 6. Example of a ledger across IIoT nodess

Node A
Pending TEs Ledger
TE #(n+1) List of TEs#
TE #1
TE #2
...
TE #n
TE #(n+1)

Node B Node D
Pending TEs Ledger Pending TEs Ledger
TE #(n+1) List of TEs# TE #(n+1) List of TEs#
TE #1 TE #1
TE #2 TE #2
... ...
TE #n TE #n
TE #(n+1) TE #(n+1)

TE #(n+1) Node C
1. Node B creates and includes new TE #(n+1) Pending TEs Ledger
2. New block will distributed across the network
TE #(n+1) List of TEs#
3. New block is included across the blockchain system
TE #1
TE #2
...
TE #n
TE #(n+1)

Fig. 7. Example of update of new TE across Blockchain systems

Block 0 Block 1 ... Block N

Ver Merkle Root Ver Merkle Root Ver Merkle Root

Pre.Hash Pre.Hash ... Pre.Hash
Nonce Nonce Nonce
Timestamp Timestamp Timestamp
State State State
List of TE# List of TE# List of TE#

Fig. 8. Chaining of Blocks with TEs

 10

Data Field Description

Block number block height
Current hash hash value of current block
Previous hash the hash value of previous block
Merkle Merkle tree
Timestamp the time stamp of xx
Block size The size of the block
Nounce Nounce value, manipulated by the
mining node to solve the hash puz-
zle that gives them the right to
publish the block
Transactions list List of Ts included within the block
TABLE II
DATA FIELDS IN A BLOCK

Hroot=Hash(H12|H34)

H12=Hash(H1|H2) H12=Hash(H1|H2)

H1=Hash(TE#1) H2=Hash(TE#2) H3=Hash(TE#3) H4=Hash(TE#4)

Transactional Transactional Transactional Transactional

Event #1 Event #2 Event #3 Event #4

Fig. 9. Example of a Merkle Tree

PoW PoS RR
Energy consumption high low low
Equipment Mining (ASIC, GPU) No equipment no
Security High Untested low
Block Size 1MB -
Decentralised Tends to centralise Users can remain in con-
trol of their tokens
Example Bitcoin, Ethereum, Zcash Ethereum after Casper Permissioned Private
TABLE III
C ONSENSUS M ODEL IN B LOCKCHAIN

contract does without introducing a middleman. Smart blockchain shows huge promises and has been used to
contracts can help participants in a blockchain system build new market, cryptocurrency (up to 2068, according to
exchange data, assets, shares, or conflict-free way while coinmarketcap), payment and investment systems, such as
avoiding the services of a middleman [43]. Basically, a smart Ripple, Litecoin, Nxt, Peercoin, Dogecoin,
contract consist of following main components: parties, Monero, etc.
triggering events, regulators. Smart contract In e-government systems, the blockchain can offer effec-
has been widely used in many industrial areas, such as tive identification verification over distributed ledger to store
financial derivations to insurance premiums, data extraction, identities, such as e-passport in Dubai, e-identity in Estonia,
product design, healthcare, insurance, etc. The smart contract blockchain based land registration, etc.
can provide IIoT many benefits, including autonomy,
trust, traceability, safety, efficiency, Modern supply chains have become increasingly sophis-
auditability, accuracy. However, there are still a ticated, and their impact on the competitiveness of many
few challenges in the deployment of smart contract must be companies is an important factor to take into account, for
addressed: (1) bug-free code; (2) governments regulations example, the shared economy, the traditional taxi is competing
and taxation, etc. with shared ‘didi, and the shared ‘haohaoyun has make great
eco-and social logistics industry in China.
In blockchain-enabled IIoT applications, Ethereum is one of
V. K EY A PPLICATIONS IN II OT
the most popular platforms, which can provide more features.
The blockchain technology has been widely used in in- The emerging M2M and 5G technology can significantly
dustries, including finance, e-government, manufacturing, e- enhance the deployment of blockchain in IIoT. Figure 10
healthcare, energy, real estates, education, etc. In finance, illustrates an example of IIoT in supply chain applications.
 11

Governance

Producer Supplier Factor Delivery Shopping Custumer

Data Layer
ERP Process Item
Integration

Process Item
Registration

Blockchain
Layer

Fig. 10. Applications of Blockchain in IIoT

VI. R ESEARCH C HALLENGES AND F UTURE T RENDS traceable and transparent way. It is a major challenge to
The blockchain enabled IIoT aims at developing a re- model raw information in a reasonable granularity level.
dundant, traceable, and secure complex interconnected IIoT 4) Supporting infrastructures in blockchain enabled IIoT.
environment. The blockchain enabled IIoT is still facing many Integrating blockchain into IIoT involves implementa-
challenges that must be addressed before it can be widely tion of the blockchain capability over the supporting
accepted and deployed in industries. infrastructures.
5) Overall agreement in the IIoT ecosystem requires all
stakeholders to commit to investing in and using these
A. Technical Challenges new features. The sustainability and traceability of all
Although many research efforts have been conducted in the entities and transactional events should be addressed in
past few years both in blockchain and IIoT, there are still many blockchain enabled IIoT.
challenges need to be addressed:
1) Security and privacy, in decentralized IIoT systems, B. Standardization Blockchain IIoT
the privacy and confidentiality, including entity identity, The ISO approved the international standards on blockchain
confidential and zero-knowledge transactions, crypto proposed by Australia in 2016 and the new standard for
blinding, etc. are still very challenging. blockchain and distributed ledger technology (ISO/TC 307) is
2) Margin erosion and arbitrary changes, rapidly changing to be published in 2019 [44], [45]. Actually, there a number
demands business process require the IIoT system can standards development activities relating to blockchain are
quickly react on an increasing frequency. To further in developing that covers main topics in blockchain, such
improve the efficiency, reduce risk management, and as terminology, privacy, governance (AS ISO/IEC 37500),
provide trustiness between participants are still very interoperability, security, and risks.
challenging. In industry, the UK and Europe have developed a number
3) Modelisation of information is a major challenge. An of standards to support financial transactions and the role
IIoT ecosystem consists of large number of entities, of standards in building market confidence by addressing
to present each entity in blockchain (as token) in a blockchain issues relating to the governance, authentications,
 12

interoperability, and privacy. The standardization of blockchain D. Research Trends

technology should align to relevant existing international in- The shift towards blockchain enabled IIoT brings with
dustry standards. numerous challenges as addressed above, a number of practical
From the viewpoint of IIoT developers, the blockchain limitations and challenges around blockchain that will need
standardisation will play a key role in shaping the future of to be addressed as these areas are explored. Future research
the technology. The blockchain standardization should be able directions include:
to provide guidance to developers and users of blockchain 1) Mobility-aware fine-gained analysis, using 2-hop knowl-
technology. edge to construct geometric constraints w.r.t. fixed sys-
tem of coordinates; attestation techniques for IoT, ex-
tending Kalis to perform attestation;
C. Security and Privacy in Blockchain enabled IIoT 2) Bring-your-own-IoT (BYOT), enabling containerization
and policies onto IoT, cloud-enabled devices, and IoT
In the evolving IIoT ecosystem, security incidents and identity, identifying IoT devices by traffic patterns, lever-
vulnerabilities are on the increase [46]. The sheer scale and aging identity for cloud repository of policies;
inextricable interconnectedness of IIoT significantly expanded 3) Incentivizing interoperability in blockchain enabled IIoT
the security attack surfaces and there is much to be done will continue to be an key research issue;
from device authentication to the formal verification of new 4) Security and privacy considerations, implementation of
generation of smart contracts. Specifically, the security and anonymous operations, as well as device identification,
privacy research of smart contract is an emerging area. It is key managements, user engagement, will also need
important to consider following IIoT features in implement consideration. The privacy regulations (such as GDPR)
security solutions: (1) The identity and access management need to clearly address data authorization and storage
of digital primer; (2) Dynamic and continuously evolve of rules;
the entities in IIoT; (3) The heterogeneous with respect to 5) Since the lack of standards for blockchain technologies
communication, platform, devices, etc.; (4) Insecure design and DLT, the integrity of blockchain and existing in-
for IIoT infrastructure, devices, and users and privacy is- dustrial standards, protocols, and the data storage over
sues. Meanwhile, the privacy issues are very challenges in cloud systems will be a key research issue;
blockchain enabled IIoT, including: 6) The coming fifth generation of communication technol-
• Threats arise for enterprise perimeters ogy (5G) is a key research trend in blockchain enabled
• Privacy-sensitive information can be easily disclosed to IIoT, which characterises ultra high speed, ultra low
third part latency, and massive access and can offer new capabil-
• Major privacy concerns arise for health-related data from ities to the IIoT. Future work will need to consider the
the use of medical devices and fitness applications aggregate effect of 5G, blockchain in IIoT.
• Wearable device collect huge amounts of personal data
as well as data about the user environment VII. C ONCLUSION

Meanwhile, the legal changes should also be considered in In a complex IIoT ecosystem, various entities are integrated
the blockchain-enabled IIoT. Both the Network and Informa- together to create, collect, process, transmit, and store data.
tion Security (NIS) Directive and the wide legal framework The industries have strong interest in blockchaining both IIoT
for personal data privacy General Data Protection Regulation entities and the business processes. Due to the rapid advances
(GDPR) became effective on may 2018. The GDPR is a in technology and innovations on business models, IIoT is
regulation on data protection and privacy proposed by EU, expected to be widely applied to industries. In this paper
which aims to give individuals the right to protection of we have addressed the integration of blockchain and IIoT
their own data. The GDPR aims at creating a uniform data from the industrial prospective. A blockchain-enabled IIoT
regulation framework within EU and to strengthen individuals framework is introduced and involved fundamental techniques
control and use their personal data. For the new NIS Directive are discussed. Key applications and challenges are addressed.
and GDPR, the data protection in blockchain environments We also analysed the research challenges and future trends
is still an open problem. In the blockchain enabled IIoT, we associated in blockchain enabled IIoT.
need consider the new notification rules around personal data
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