Blockchain System for Secure and Efficient UAV-to-Vehicle Communication in Smart Cities

In a smart city environment, Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) enables the vehicle to generate and communicate messages for safety applications. There exists a challenge where the integrity of the message needs to be verified before passing it on to other vehicles. There should be a provision to motivate the honest vehicles who are reporting the true event messages. To achieve this, traffic regulations and event detections can be linked with blockchain technology. Any vehicle violating traffic rules will be issued with a penalty by executing the smart contract. In case any accident occurs, the vehicle nearby to the spot can immediately send the event message to Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). It will check for its credibility and proceed with rewards. The authenticity of the vehicle inside the smart city area is verified by registering itself with UAVs deployed near the city entrance. This is enabled to reduce the participation of unauthorized vehicles inside the city zone. The Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA256) and Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA-192) are used for communication. The result of computation time for certificate generation and vehicles involvement rate is presented.