Written by Shivashish Yadav on   -  7 min read

How is Blockchain changing Real-time loT operating systems? Explained.

Introduction

As we move into this world of connectivity and networks, a new technology paradigm is emerging. It's called the Internet of Things or IoT for shorts. The technology paradigm of the Industrial age was one of the machine's standalone mechanized systems. There were physical mono-functional and mechanized. It is a world of non-responsive isolated technologies, each of which the end-user has to manage separately. The technology paradigm of the Information Age is one service, it's a world where individual component technologies are instrumented and connected into large networks devices that can communicate peer-to-peer adapt and self organize around the end-users needs to deliver a seamless service.

one of the best illustrations of this is the smart city where different systems no longer exist in silos but are interconnected and organized around the end-users needs through information networks.

The Internet of Things is a journey that we're just beginning on for the next decades billions of devices will come online the amount of data the Internet has to handle will grow massively as vast networks of devices and machines continuously communicate with each other to coordinate production processes for transport and logistics for construction climate control, etc.

This requires an IT infrastructure that goes far beyond the existing capacities of the Internet to deal with massive amounts of secure data, secure communications transactions, and automated micro exchanges of value between systems and devices on the edges of networks. This is part of what the next evolution on the internet will have to deal with a world of upwards of 20 billion devices constantly streaming data and making secure micro exchanges between each other peer-to-peer but simply this world of a fully fledged IOT infrastructure to our economies will be an almost unimaginably complex system.

we can think about the issues here along three dimensions

  • The bottlenecks created by existing cloud-based IoT systems.
  • Issues surrounding the security risks of centralized systems.
  • Enabling automated dynamic resource allocation between machines.

At present IOT systems often depend on a centralized architecture where information is sent from the device to a proprietary cloud where the data's processed using analytics and then sent back to those tiny IoT devices to coordinate them as with all centralized systems this only scales so far in a world of complex networks you have to have much more processing and coordination happening out on the edges of the network.

With coordination taking place peer-to-peer, so is to reduce the bottlenecks and centralize security vulnerabilities. To scale, you need to decide locally. Process the data locally and also be able to share resources locally between devices on demands. Likewise, security is, of course, a huge issue with the Internet of Things more and more. We're connecting our critical infrastructure up to IoT networks.

A good example is the recent developments of the smart grids or urban transport coordination systems the blockchain is promising for IoT security for the same reasons it works for cryptocurrencies. it provides assurance the data's legitimate and the process through which data is put into the databases. Well, finding a decentralized approach to IoT networks could solve many current issues adopting a standardized peer-to-peer communications model to process the hundreds of billions of transactions between devices will significantly reduce the costs associated with installing and maintaining large centralized data centers and will reduce the computation and storage needed across the billions of devices that will form this global IOT network likewise.

It will prevent failure in any single node in the network from shutting down the entire system. blockchain IoT solutions could enable secure trustless messaging between devices on IHC networks In this model, the blockchain will treat message exchanges between devices similar to financial transactions in a Bitcoin network ensuring their validity just as the money economy allows for better faster, and more efficient allocation of resources on a human scale blockchain networks could provide a robust and decentralized system for handling these same issues on the micro-level of individual devices, and machines the Internet of Things is going to need micro-payment systems where devices can pay automatically on demand based on the resources they consume this won't work with high transaction fees or having to wait for centralized third parties to authenticate. the transactions we want to make it possible for one machine that has the excess capacity or excess resources like: For example, computational capacity storage or electricity to sell that to another machine that means it on demands. Thus enabling an efficient load balancing system. one example that is often given of this is autonomous vehicles automatically negotiating highway passage say, for example, one vehicle that's in a hurry paying out the cars to let it pass first coordinating air delivery drones is another potential use case for device-to-device micro-payments where drones may pay a solar recharging station belonging to someone else to get charged up.

The Internet of Things is all about networks of technology that deliver services where any device that can contribute to the overall functioning of the network will be able to automatically plug into that network offering. Its capacities and receiving tokens in exchange this kind of computing environment means permission less innovation layer where anyone can start taking part and contributing to any network whether that's providing a 3d printer within a manufacturing network a bicycle in a transport network or a room in an accommodation network a connected device will provide services and receive payments for work done that are automatically credited the owner's wallets or even the wallet of the device this will create many security and privacy and financial issues that the blockchain is well-suited to enable as data can live with the end device and made available only when and as need, it forces avoiding centralized security issues.

one example of this is the dev Network which stands for decentralized autonomous vehicles dab is a blockchain platform currently under development that allows anyone to buy or sell autonomous transport services in a decentralized market This platform integrates into any autonomous vehicles enabling those vehicles to discover communicate and transact with one another using the digital token called dev, People can earn dev tokens by providing transport services a self-driving car could give rides to passengers that were not needed by its owner or drone could help with part of a delivery service distribute technologies like the blockchain are the missing link to settle the scalability privacy and reliability concerns in the Internet of Things but of course, the blockchain infrastructure of the prison could never scale to the demand that is needed new more efficient blockchain networks will have to evolve.

one of the most promising projects in this respect is iota which aims to be the distributed network protocol enabling this machine economy the main innovation behind iota is what they call the tangle a new distributed ledger design which is scalable lightweight and makes it possible to transfer value with no fees. the tangle ledger can settle transactions with zero fees so devices can trade tiny amounts of resources on demands and store data from sensors without verified on ledger while the entire world has adopted the so-called sharing economy in areas like driving and accommodation iota enables a whole new realm where anything with the chip in it could be leased in real time most of the technologies and devices we own remain idle for the vast majority of the time that we possess ownership but through blockchain IoT networks a lot of things like appliances tools drones a bicycles edger or resources such as computer storage computational power Wi-Fi capacity etc could be easily leased out a function in any service network