Distributed Ledger for Industrial IoT Service Transactions
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current management solutions for industrial systems with numerous networked devices lack scalability, transparency, and interoperability, making them inadequate for supporting direct machine-to-machine interactions and flexible IoT device interactions in autonomous industrial settings.
Innovation Solution
A distributed ledger arrangement using blockchain technology to enable direct service transactions among machines, allowing for the recording of service conditions and transactions in a scalable and transparent manner, eliminating the need for a central management entity and enabling near real-time financial monitoring.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a centralized management system is used to control and supervise industrial devices, then control and supervision are effective, but scalability and adaptability deteriorate when numerous flexible IoT devices from various manufacturers need to interact autonomously
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the centralized management function into distributed ledger nodes, where each node independently maintains a copy of the ledger and validates transactions. This segmentation allows the system to scale horizontally by adding more nodes without requiring changes to the core management architecture, thereby improving adaptability while maintaining control effectiveness through distributed consensus
Solution Approach 2:
The distributed ledger acts as an intermediary layer between devices and the management system. Instead of direct centralized control, the ledger mediates interactions by recording and validating service transactions, enabling autonomous device-to-device interactions while maintaining auditability and control, thus resolving the contradiction between centralized supervision and decentralized autonomy
2Productivity
If direct machine-to-machine interactions are enabled among numerous networked devices, then productivity and autonomy improve, but management complexity and transaction coordination difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements homogeneous interaction protocols and data structures across all ledger nodes. Every device interacts with the ledger using the same standardized interface for recording transactions and querying service conditions. This homogeneity simplifies transaction management complexity by providing a uniform communication framework, allowing numerous devices to interact directly without increasing coordination difficulty
3Loss of information
If service transactions are recorded in real-time in a distributed ledger, then transparency and financial monitoring capability improve, but system complexity and implementation difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements distributed ledger technology where each node maintains a complete copy of the transaction ledger. This copying mechanism ensures that every participant has access to the same transparent information about service transactions in real-time. The replication of data across nodes provides transparency without requiring complex centralized information distribution systems, as each node independently stores and validates the same information
Data Source
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AI summary
A distributed ledger arrangement (110) for supporting service transactions in an industrial system (150) comprises: a plurality of nodes (111) of a network (112), each configured to maintain a distributed ledger copy; a plurality of machine-to-ledger interfaces (120), each configured to receive, from a device (Ri, R2, SP1, TBi) acting as service provider and/or service consumer in the industrial system, service condition inquiries and requests to record transactions; and one or more manager-to-ledger interfaces (130), each configured to receive, from a device owner (131) authorized to specify service conditions with effect on the devices, requests to record service conditions.