Adaptive Hybrid Consensus Blockchain Model for Efficient IoT Integration in Smart City Infrastructures

The suggested paper introduces an improved lightweight blockchain model designed for smart city infrastructures mainly focused on intelligent IoT scenarios. Today, smart cities mainly depend on interconnected IoT devices to improve services like transportation, energy, and public safety. However, blockchain systems face significant difficulties due to high processing demands, data duplication, and capacity problems. To address these issues, in this study, we proposed a novel model called Adaptive Hybrid Consensus (AHC), which combines the advantages of consortium and consensus lightweight concepts. Using a role-based hierarchy, this system classifies IoT devices according to their computing and storage abilities. Here, high-capacity nodes such as fog and edge computing devices can handle data validation and temporary storage, whereas low-capacity IoT devices focus on pre-validating data using an Assisted Local Consensus (ALC) method. Proof of Adaptive Authority and Stake (PoA-S) is a lightweight consensus technique which helps to continuously select validators according to their interest, workload, and credibility to ensure balanced and effective operations. By storing only the important data on the blockchain and distributing non-essential data to edge nodes, the Assisted Selected Relevant Data in Local Ledger (ASRDLL) technique is used. Also, it helps to create a selective data storage strategy and reduces storage overhead. Topic-based partitioning is performed further to improve the network performance by classifying data according to their respective application domains. Then, the system enhances network performance by grouping data based on specific areas like healthcare and traffic management. It also focuses on quickly handling essential and time-sensitive data to ensure fast responses in important situations. This design was tested using a prototype regarding energy reduction efficiency, data handling efficiency and quick response compared to the existing blockchain approaches. Therefore, again, this approach proves its efficacy in resource-constrained IoT environments and makes it suitable for smart cities.