An Innovative Blockchain-Assisted Multi-Message and Multi-Receiver Heterogeneous Signcryption for Cross-Domain Vehicle Platoon Communication

The operation of autonomous vehicle platooning enhances road efficiency by allowing vehicles to drive in close formation, a process that depends on the platoon leader (PL) communicating essential information to the platoon followers (PFs). In such platoon operations, the efficiency of one-to-many communication and the capability to interact effectively with the PL's heterogeneous domain followers are particularly important for the PL. Tackling the heterogeneity between a sender and multiple receivers, numerous heterogeneous one-to-many signcryption schemes have been proposed. However, these schemes fail to address the issues of heterogeneity between receivers and low efficiency in concurrent one-to-many communication scenarios. To address these challenges, we propose an innovative blockchain-assisted multi-message and multi-receiver heterogeneous signcryption (BMMHSC) scheme, which aims to enhance the efficiency of the PL in concurrently transmitting multiple one-to-many communication messages. Additionally, this scheme leverages blockchain technology as a support system and uses smart contracts to manage the platoon, effectively tackling the heterogeneous communication issues in cross-domain vehicle platoon. A rigorous security proof demonstrates that the BMMHSC scheme is indistinguishable under chosen ciphertext attack (IND-CCA) and existential unforgeability under chosen message attack (EUF-CMA). Experimental results indicate that the scheme incurs low costs in terms of computation, communication, and expenses, making it highly suitable for application in vehicle platooning environments.