Fair and smart spectrum allocation scheme for IIoT based on blockchain

Abstract Compared to 5G mobile network with a peak rate of 10Gbps, 6G can provide over 100Gbps peak rate, which can better support Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) popularity and application. Spectrum dynamic access is one of the basic techniques of 6G, and spectrum auction has been gradually applied to mobile communication to solve the problem of secondary users access. To cope with the risk of sudden demand increase of primary users after auction, several channel recall based schemes were proposed. However, the spectrum auction fairness between sellers and buyers as well as fairness among buyers during auction and channel recall process have not been considered in the existing spectrum auction algorithms. Utilizing the unique features of blockchain, a spectrum auction method based on blockchain for 6G mobile network is proposed. The fairness between sellers and buyers and fairness among buyers are guaranteed by smart contracts. The sudden increase of primary users’ traffic demand risk can also be well solved. In addition, in the proposed method, user privacy preservation is provided by blockchain. We deploy the algorithm on Ethereum test network, experimental results indicate that the proposed method is effective in fairness, with a high efficiency and preservation of user privacy.