Incentivized and Secure Blockchain-based Firmware Update and Dissemination for Autonomous Vehicles

This chapter explores an incentivized blockchain-based firmware update scheme tailored for Autonomous Vehicles (AVs). As the number of autonomous vehicles increases, the security and reliability of AVs require complex server infrastructure, thus making it very expensive for the manufacturers. Blockchain was first introduced in 2008 as the underline technology behind the cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin to help make the peer-to-peer exchange of value without a centralized third party. A blockchain is a distributed, immutable, and append-only data structure formed by a sequence of blocks that are chronologically and cryptographically linked together. Attribute-based encryption (ABE) is an encryption scheme that allows access control over encrypted data. The manufacturer deploys a smart-contract by broadcasting a transaction to the blockchain network. A smart contract is used to ensure the authenticity and integrity of firmware updates, and more importantly to manage the reputation scores of AVs that transfer the new updates to other AVs.