A decentralised approach to cyber-physical systems as a service: Managing shared access worldwide through blockchain standards

Abstract

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) is a general concept that encompasses a wide variety of systems. Depending on their nature, application, and accessibility needs and restrictions, CPSs can differ a lot from each other. This paper proposes a classification of CPSs based on their accessibility needs and restrictions and, more importantly, presents an approach to create a decentralised and worldwide common access management framework for CPSs for non-critical infrastructures that are meant to be shared and accessed remotely (i.e., offered as a service). The presented solution uses a permissionless blockchain, existing fungible tokens, and a combination of smart contracts based on nonfungible token standards/proposals to enable CPS owners to manage secure, flexible access without centralised oversight. In addition, the proposed framework provides built-in mechanisms for: (i) charging for the use of CPSs, (ii) availability calendar configuration, (iii) worldwide visibility, (iv) easy integration with authentication/authorisation methods, and (v) access control flexibility.