Light-PerIChain: Using Lightweight Scalable Blockchain Based on Node Performance and Improved Consensus Algorithm in IoT Systems

With the development of the industry and the increase of smart devices in recent years, the Internet of Things has expanded as one of the solutions to meet human needs in smart societies. However, this emerging technology suffers from security vulnerabilities. In recent years, blockchain has attracted much attention due to its decentralization. However, blockchain is computationally expensive, with limited scalability and high overhead costs. Also, designing a secure and robust blockchain for use in the Internet of Things is challenging. In this article, we provide solutions to improve the sharding method to achieve a lightweight and scalable blockchain and enhance the efficiency of the Internet of Things. To assign nodes to shards in the first round, we use the Verifiable Random Function (VRF), and after a few rounds, nodes are assigned to shards according to their point and performance in the network. We use the IBFT consensus algorithm to process the transaction in shards. Unlike other consensus algorithms based on Byzantine fault tolerance, this algorithm requires 2f+1 replicas instead of 3f+1 for fault tolerance. Also, in this method, the team leader’s shard is considered, so nodes with the highest performance assign to this shard. If the malicious behavior of the team leader is detected, one of the nodes in the team leader’s shard is replaced by it. For cross-transaction processing, we present an improved two-phase commit method that solves many problems with existing two-phase commit methods. Finally, we analyze our design for efficiency and security. Our qualitative arguments show that this design is resistant to several security attacks and that the scalability and throughput of IoT are increased compared to previous designs.