Development of an Effective Node Replication Based Consensus Algorithm for Reliable Small-Scale Blockchain Networks

This paper explores blockchain as a decentralized and distributed storage technology where each device stores identical transaction data without reliance on a third party for verification or control. Consensus algorithms, particularly those based on voting systems, validate transactions and ensure tamper-proof records by achieving agreement among participants. However, existing voting-based algorithms face challenges such as high message transmission overhead, increased latency, and reliance on hardware evaluation to determine node reliability. To address these limitations, this study proposes a novel consensus algorithm designed for small-scale blockchain networks. The proposed scheme defines a fixed number of nodes within an internal group to perform consensus, significantly reducing transmission latency, improving throughput, and minimizing message exchanges. Simulators for PBFT, QPBFT, and the proposed scheme were developed and evaluated under varying conditions. Results indicate that the proposed scheme outperforms PBFT and QPBFT in terms of throughput and message verification success rates, while maintaining stable performance. This research provides valuable insights into the design of efficient consensus algorithms for reliable, small-scale blockchain systems and lays the groundwork for future implementation and evaluation in real-world networks.