KR20230100561A - Competitive mining systems and competitive mining methods that perform competitive mining based on edge computing - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a competitive block mining method performed by a plurality of edge devices communicating with an edge server, wherein the plurality of edge devices form a blockchain network, and data offloaded to the edge server is transferred to the block forwarding to other edge devices on the chain network; Mining the data into blocks by performing Proof-of-Work (PoW) on the data by each edge device; each edge device forwarding the mined block to another edge device on the blockchain network; and identifying mined blocks by each of the edge devices and adding only blocks that satisfy predetermined conditions to the blockchain. This can improve the security of data offloaded to edge servers, as well as reduce energy consumption and latency of edge devices such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Description

Competitive block mining system and competitive block mining method performing competitive block mining based on edge computing

The present invention relates to a competitive block mining system and method for competitive block mining that perform competitive block mining based on edge computing, and more particularly, to a competitive block mining system that performs competitive block mining based on edge computing that can increase mining speed. It is about mining systems and competitive block mining methods.

Edge computing is a technology proposed to solve the problem of existing cloud computing in which data must be completely transmitted to the cloud and processing speed is slowed down due to a long time delay accordingly.

Because many IoT devices and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) require fast response times (the time required to offload data and compute), sending data to the cloud as in traditional cloud computing can cause serious problems in practice. For example, a safety control system operating an industrial machine may have to stop immediately if a person is too close, and a delay in response time may cause human injury or damage to the machine.

Therefore, performing sensor or device processing at the edge (e.g., edge computing) for short response times that cannot be achieved with traditional cloud computing is possible because the data can be properly filtered and processed before it is sent to the cloud. It has the advantage that the network cost of data transmission can be effectively reduced, as well as the cost of cloud storage can be reduced at the same time.

However, in edge computing, data can be exposed to malicious secret attacks or intercepted by eavesdroppers or other mobile devices such as UAVs. In particular, data is vulnerable to attacks during offloading from UAVs to edge servers.

As such, blockchain could be a useful solution to solving the security problems of edge computing in many real-world applications such as self-driving cars, smart homes, and healthcare. However, due to the computational burden of solving high-difficulty proof-of-work (PoW) puzzles, some resource-limited nodes such as UAVs and mobile devices require significant processing power to participate in the mining and consensus process, resulting in significant There is the problem of sacrificing time.

Therefore, a technology that can reduce the energy and time required to mine blocks of the blockchain used to solve the security problem of edge computing is needed.

Korea Patent Registration No. 10-2081274

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to improve the security of data offloaded to an edge server, as well as to reduce energy consumption and energy consumption of edge devices such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). To provide a competitive block mining system and competitive block mining method that perform competitive mining based on edge computing capable of reducing waiting time.

In order to achieve the above object, a competitive block mining method performed by a plurality of edge devices communicating with an edge server based on edge computing according to an embodiment of the present invention includes the plurality of edge devices forming a blockchain network, forwarding the data offloaded to the edge server to another edge device on the blockchain network; Mining the data into blocks by performing Proof-of-Work (PoW) on the data by each edge device; each edge device forwarding the mined block to another edge device on the blockchain network; and identifying mined blocks by each of the edge devices and adding only blocks that satisfy predetermined conditions to the blockchain.

The edge device includes a plurality of miners that mine the data in blocks, and in the mining step, the edge device selects a certain number of miners from among the plurality of miners, and in the selected miners The data can be selected as a block.

In addition, in the mining step, the proof-of-work may be performed by calculating a puzzle for the same proof-of-work in each of the selected miners.

In the mining step, the selected miners compete to mine blocks, but when one of the selected miners completes mining, the other miners may stop the mining.

In addition, in the step of adding to the blockchain, the block mined by the edge devices on the blockchain network is cross-validated to identify the first mined block among all the edge devices, and the first mined block to the blockchain can be added to

Meanwhile, in a competitive block mining system including a plurality of edge devices communicating with an edge server according to an embodiment of the present invention for achieving the above object, the plurality of edge devices form a blockchain network, and each edge The device includes a mining management unit that forwards data offloaded to the edge server to other edge devices on the blockchain network; and a plurality of mining units that perform proof-of-work (PoW) on data offloaded to the edge server to mine the data into blocks, wherein the mining management unit converts the mined blocks into blocks. It is transmitted to other edge devices on the blockchain network, identifies the mined blocks, and adds only blocks that satisfy the pre-set conditions to the blockchain.

The mining management unit may select a predetermined number of mining units from among the plurality of mining units and mine the data as a block in the selected mining units.

In addition, the plurality of miners may perform the proof-of-work by calculating a puzzle for the same proof-of-work in each of the selected miners.

The plurality of mining units may compete with each other to mine a block, and when mining is completed in one of the selected mining units, the mining may be stopped in the other mining units.

In addition, the mining management unit may cross-verify the mined block between edge devices on the blockchain network to identify the first mined block among the edge devices, and add the first mined block to the blockchain. .

According to one aspect of the present invention described above, by providing a competitive block mining system and a competitive block mining method that perform competitive mining based on edge computing, it is possible to improve the security of data offloaded to the edge server, as well as It can reduce energy consumption and standby time of edge devices such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

1 is a diagram for explaining a competitive block mining system of the present invention;
Figure 2 is a block diagram for explaining the edge device of the present invention shown in Figure 1;
3 to 5 are diagrams for explaining the effect of the edge device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and
6 is a flowchart illustrating a competitive block mining method performed in an edge device of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The detailed description of the present invention which follows refers to the accompanying drawings which illustrate, by way of illustration, specific embodiments in which the present invention may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable one skilled in the art to practice the present invention. It should be understood that the various embodiments of the present invention are different from each other but are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, specific shapes, structures, and characteristics described herein may be implemented in another embodiment without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention in connection with one embodiment. Additionally, it should be understood that the location or arrangement of individual components within each disclosed embodiment may be changed without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the detailed description set forth below is not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention, if properly described, is limited only by the appended claims, along with all equivalents as claimed by those claims. Like reference numbers in the drawings indicate the same or similar function throughout the various aspects.

Components according to the present invention are components defined by functional division rather than physical division, and may be defined by the functions each performs. Each of the components may be implemented as hardware or program codes and processing units that perform respective functions, and the functions of two or more components may be implemented by being included in one component. Therefore, the names given to the components in the following embodiments are not to physically distinguish each component, but to imply the representative function performed by each component, and the names of the components indicate the present invention. It should be noted that the technical idea of is not limited.

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to the drawings.

First, FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining the competitive block mining system (1, hereinafter system) of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram for explaining the edge device 200 of the present invention shown in FIG.

As shown, the system 1 of the present invention may be a system based on edge computing including the edge server 100 , the edge device 200 and the cloud 300 . In addition, the edge device 200 of the system 1 may be provided as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or an IoT device as shown in FIG. 1 .

In such edge computing, the edge device 200 generally offloads data to the nearest edge server 100 .

However, in the conventional edge computing, data may be exposed to eavesdropping in the process of being offloaded to the edge server 100, as well as being vulnerable to some malicious secret attacks.

The system 1 of the present invention is prepared to solve this problem, and can apply a block chain to the data offloading step.

In addition, when the edge device 200 offloads data to the edge server 100 based on the block chain, the edge server 100 may then perform computing work on the offloaded data.

Then, data processed by the edge server 100 may be transmitted to the cloud 300 .

A process in which the system 1 of the present invention mines data into blocks based on a block chain is as shown in FIG.

First, the edge device 200 including the plurality of miners 220 may perform proof-of-work by calculating a proof-of-work puzzle. Therefore, the edge device 200 can mine data offloaded to the edge server 100 as a block by performing such a proof-of-work.

At this time, the edge device 200 may compete with each other by having each of the plurality of miners 220 mine blocks. Accordingly, the plurality of miners 220 can compete to mine blocks before other miners 220 by performing block mining competitively with each other.

In addition, the edge device 200 can identify which mining unit 220 completed mining first through an identification procedure for confirming the time when mining included in the block mined from the plurality of mining units 220 is completed. there is. Accordingly, when the plurality of miners 220 complete mining almost simultaneously, the edge device 200 may identify the miner 220 that completed mining first.

Afterwards, the edge device 200 may broadcast the mined block to other edge devices 200 on the blockchain network for cross-validation.

Blocks that have been cross-validated between the edge devices 200 on the blockchain network can finally be added to the blockchain.

Hereinafter, the edge device 200 will be described in more detail.

The edge device 200 of the present invention may communicate with the edge server 100, and as shown in FIG. 1, a plurality of edge devices 200 may be provided to form a blockchain network.

In addition, the edge device 200 can enhance the security of data offloaded to the edge server 100 by mining data in blocks based on a blockchain. In this case, the edge device 200 of the present invention may allow the plurality of miners 220 to mine blocks competitively with each other in order to reduce the time and energy required for block mining.

To this end, the edge device 200 may include a mining management unit 210 and a plurality of mining units 220-1 to 220-n.

The edge device 200 may further include a communication unit for communicating with external devices including the edge server 100 and other edge devices 200 and a storage unit for storing various types of information.

The mining management unit 210 may transmit data offloaded to the edge server 100 to other edge devices on the blockchain network. When a block is mined by the plurality of mining units 220-1 to 220-n, the mining management unit 210 may identify the time when the mined block was mined. Through this, the mining management unit 210 may determine which mining unit 220 has completed mining first.

In addition, the mining management unit 210 may select a predetermined number of mining units 220 from among the plurality of mining units 220-1 to 220-n, as shown in FIG. 2 .

That is, if the number of competing mining units 220 is set to two in advance, the mining management unit 210 selects the first mining unit 220-1 from among the plurality of mining units 220-1 to 220-n. and the second miner 220-2 is selected.

In addition, the mining management unit 210 performs proof-of-work for data only in the first mining unit 220-1 and the second mining unit 220-2 selected from among the plurality of mining units 220-1 to 220-n. can make it

In addition, the mining management unit 210 may deliver the mined block to other edge devices on the blockchain network.

In addition, the mining management unit 210 may cross-verify the mined blocks between the edge devices 200 on the blockchain network and add only blocks that satisfy predetermined conditions to the blockchain.

In detail, the mining manager 210 may receive a block mined from another edge device 200 for cross-verification. In addition, the mining management unit 210 may compare the time when the block(s) received from the other edge device 200 were mined with the block mined by the mining unit 210 . Accordingly, the mining management unit 210 may identify the first mined block based on the mining time point and add the corresponding block to the block chain.

Meanwhile, the plurality of miners 220-1 to 220-n may perform Proof-of-Work (PoW) on data offloaded to the edge server 100 to mine data in blocks.

Specifically, in proof-of-work, difficulty is a measure of how difficult it is to mine a block on a blockchain. And in cryptocurrency, difficulty is used as a parameter to keep the average time between blocks constant as hash power changes.

In addition, the block chain-based mining unit 220 of the present invention performs proof-of-work by randomly inferring the block hash value, which means that the time required to complete the mining task is random. Therefore, if more miners, that is, a plurality of miners 220 of the present invention are selected in the blockchain, the possibility of solving the proof-of-work faster increases.

Therefore, in the edge device 200 of the present invention including a plurality of mining units 220-1 to 220-n, some mining units (eg, 220-1 and 220-2) are can be chosen Further, the proof-of-work may be performed by calculating a puzzle for the same proof-of-work in each of the selected miners 220-1 and 220-2. Through this, the selected miners 220-1 and 220-2 may compete to mine blocks first.

To this end, all of the miners 220-1 to 220-n may be divided into different processes and controlled. Also, as described above, the selected miners 220-1 and 220-2 calculate the puzzle for the same proof-of-work, that is, the same block hash value.

At this time, if mining is completed first in one of the selected mining units 220-1 and 220-2 (for example, 220-1), mining may be stopped in the remaining mining units 220-2. Additional computing resources may not be used.

Therefore, in the system 1 of the present invention, the miners 220-1 and 220-2 selected from the plurality of miners 220-1 to 220-n provided in each edge device 200 to mine blocks First, competitive block mining is performed. Then, among the mined blocks shared between each edge device 200 on the blockchain network, secondary competition is performed so that the first mined block is added, thereby forming a competition layer.

Through this, the system 1 according to the present invention can improve the security of data offloaded to the edge server 100, as well as reduce energy consumption and standby time of the edge device 200 such as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). can reduce

Meanwhile, FIGS. 3 to 5 are views for explaining the effect of the edge device 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Specifically, FIG. 3 is a graph showing the average delay time required for mining and offloading according to the number of miners selected for each difficulty of proof-of-work, and FIG. 4 shows average energy consumption according to the number of miners selected for each difficulty of proof-of-work. It is a graph, and FIG. 5 is a table showing FIGS. 3 and 4 as percentages.

As shown, when competitive mining is performed by selecting some of the plurality of mining units 220-1 to 220-n of the edge device 200 as in the system 1 according to the present invention, conventional single mining It can be seen that not only does the average waiting time take less than the baseline, but the average energy consumed also decreases.

Specifically, an edge computing network including three edge devices 200 and an edge server 100 was based on the experiment. And K, the number of miners selected for competitive block mining, ranges from 2 to 4, and the number of mining operations is set to 100. Since most drones do not have enough resources (i.e. processing power) to have more miners, up to four miners were chosen to make the experiment more realistic.

In Figures 3 to 5, the comparison is made based on the performance of the case of using a single mining unit (Baseline), that is, the case of K = 1, and as can be seen through the graphs and tables, single mining in terms of standby time and energy consumption It shows much better performance than when negative is selected.

In addition, it can be seen that when 4 mining units are selected (K=4), the highest performance is shown when the difficulty is highest (D=6).

Comparing this numerically more reliably in terms of delay time, as shown in FIG. 5, when three mining units are selected (K = 3) in difficulty D = 4, 157% compared to the case of using a single mining unit (baseline), that is, It was confirmed that it was 2.5 times faster.

In particular, when four miners were selected (K=4) at the difficulty level D=5, it was confirmed that it was 231%, that is, 3.3 times faster than a single miner (baseline), which indicates that the system (1) of the present invention is faster than the conventional technology. It can be seen that there is a significant improvement.

And even when the difficulty D=6 and 4 miners are selected (K=4), it can be seen that the speed is 254%, that is, 3.5 times faster than a single miner (baseline).

On the other hand, looking at the case of energy consumption, it can be seen that in the case of difficulty D = 4, the case where three mining units are selected (K = 3) consumes 24% less energy than a single mining unit.

In particular, in the case of D=5 and D=6, which have high difficulty, selecting 4 miners (K=4) shows high performance in reducing latency compared to the case of using a single miner (baseline). Nevertheless, it can be seen that energy consumption is 60% and 56% less energy, respectively, compared to the case of using a single baseline.

Therefore, the system 1 including the edge device 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention shows high efficiency and superiority compared to the case of using a conventional single miner (baseline).

Meanwhile, FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining a competitive block mining method performed in the edge device 200 of the present invention. The competitive block mining method according to an embodiment of the present invention is a competitive block mining method shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 Since it proceeds on substantially the same configuration as the mining system 1 and the edge device 200, the same reference numerals are given to the same components as the competitive block mining system 1 and the edge device 200 of FIGS. 1 and 2 and repeated descriptions will be omitted.

The competitive block mining method according to an embodiment of the present invention may be performed by a plurality of edge devices 200 communicating with the edge server 100 based on edge computing.

First, a plurality of edge devices 200 may form a blockchain network, and transfer data offloaded to the edge server 100 to other edge devices 200 on the blockchain network (S110).

Thereafter, each edge device 200 may perform Proof-of-Work (PoW) on the data to mine the data in blocks (S130).

In the step of mining such data into blocks (S130), the edge device 200 extracts a predetermined number of miners (for example, 220-1 and 220-2) from among the plurality of miners 220-1 to 220-n. ) can be selected.

In the step of mining data in blocks (S130), the proof-of-work may be performed by calculating a puzzle for the same proof-of-work in each of the selected first and second miners 220-1 and 220-2. Through this, in the step of mining data into blocks (S130), the selected first and second miners 220-1 and 220-2 may compete to mine blocks.

In addition, in the step of mining data into blocks (S130), when mining is completed in one of the selected first and second mining units 220-1 and 220-2 (for example, 220-1), the remaining mining units are mined. In section 220-2, mining may be stopped. Through this, the rest of the mining unit 220-2 is stopped, so additional computing resources may not be used.

Then, each edge device 200 may transfer the mined block to another edge device 200 on the blockchain network (S150).

Afterwards, each edge device 200 may identify mined blocks and add only blocks that satisfy predetermined conditions to the blockchain (S170).

In the step of adding to the block chain (S170), the first mined block among all the edge devices 200 may be identified by cross-verifying the mined block between the edge devices 200 on the block chain network. Through this, the edge device 200 may add the block identified as being first mined to the blockchain.

The competitive block mining method of the present invention may be implemented in the form of program instructions that can be executed through various computer components and recorded on a computer readable recording medium. The computer readable recording medium may include program instructions, data files, data structures, etc. alone or in combination.

Program instructions recorded on the computer-readable recording medium may be specially designed and configured for the present invention, or may be known and usable to those skilled in the art of computer software.

Examples of computer-readable recording media include magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks and magnetic tapes, optical recording media such as CD-ROMs and DVDs, and magneto-optical media such as floptical disks. media), and hardware devices specially configured to store and execute program instructions, such as ROM, RAM, flash memory, and the like.

Examples of program instructions include high-level language codes that can be executed by a computer using an interpreter or the like as well as machine language codes such as those produced by a compiler. The hardware device may be configured to act as one or more software modules to perform processing according to the present invention and vice versa.

Although various embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described above, the present invention is not limited to the specific embodiments described above, and is commonly used in the technical field to which the present invention pertains without departing from the gist of the present invention claimed in the claims. Of course, various modifications and implementations are possible by those with knowledge of, and these modifications should not be individually understood from the technical spirit or perspective of the present invention.

1: Competitive Block Mining Systems 100: Edge Servers
200: edge device 210: mining management unit
220: mining unit 300: cloud

Claims (10)

In a competitive block mining method performed on a plurality of edge devices communicating with an edge server,
forming a blockchain network by the plurality of edge devices and transferring data offloaded to the edge server to other edge devices on the blockchain network;
Mining the data into blocks by performing Proof-of-Work (PoW) on the data by each edge device;
each edge device forwarding the mined block to another edge device on the blockchain network; and
Competitive block mining method comprising the step of identifying mined blocks by each of the edge devices and adding only blocks that satisfy predetermined conditions to the blockchain. According to claim 1,
The edge device,
It includes a plurality of mining units that mine the data into blocks,
In the mining step,
Competitive block mining method, characterized in that the edge device selects a predetermined number of miners from among the plurality of miners, and mines the data as a block in the selected miners. According to claim 2,
In the mining step,
Competitive block mining method, characterized in that the proof of work is performed by calculating a puzzle for the same proof of work in each of the selected miners. According to claim 3,
In the mining step,
Competitive block mining method characterized in that the selected miners compete to mine blocks, and when one of the selected miners completes mining, the other miners stop the mining. According to claim 1,
In the step of adding to the blockchain,
Competitive block mining method characterized by cross-verifying blocks mined between edge devices on the blockchain network to identify a block mined first among edge devices, and adding the first mined block to the blockchain. In a competitive block mining system comprising a plurality of edge devices in communication with an edge server,
The plurality of edge devices form a blockchain network,
Each edge device,
a mining management unit that forwards data offloaded to the edge server to other edge devices on the blockchain network; and
Includes a plurality of miners that mine the data into blocks by performing Proof-of-Work (PoW) on the data;
The mining management department,
Competitive block mining system, characterized in that for transferring the mined blocks to other edge devices on the blockchain network, identifying the mined blocks and adding only blocks that satisfy predetermined conditions to the blockchain. According to claim 6,
The mining management department,
Selecting a certain number of miners from among the plurality of miners,
Competitive block mining system, characterized in that the selected mining unit mines the data as a block. According to claim 7,
Each of the selected mining units,
A competitive block mining system characterized in that all of them perform the proof-of-work by calculating puzzles for the same proof-of-work. According to claim 8,
The plurality of miners,
The competitive block mining system, characterized in that the selected miners compete to mine blocks, and when mining is completed in one of the selected miners, the mining is stopped in the other miners. According to claim 6,
The mining management department,
Competitive block mining system characterized by cross-verifying the mined block between edge devices on the blockchain network to identify the first mined block among the edge devices and adding the first mined block to the blockchain .

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