Simulating Internet of Things Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks with Distributed Ledger Technology: "Which DLT is Best?"

Internet of Things (IoT) and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), are both young fields that are especially suited to covering low-power decentralized environments. We identify an under-studied niche of IoT Mobile Ad-hoc NETworks (MANETs) to best utilize DLTs, and challenge ourselves to put an entire cryptographically secure DLT on a \$46 Arduino MKR WAN 1310. To accomplish this we create an open-source simulator for IoT-MANETs with several customizable modules: simple geo-spatial map, multiple DLT architectures, 3 wireless networks, consensus algorithms, mobile agent properties, storage optimizations, and Peer to Peer (P2P) gossip settings. We compare blockchains, Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs), HashGraphLight (a novel IoT-derivative of HashGraph) across Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Location (PoL). We then optimize the storage capacities, P2P set reconciliation, data throughput and battery consumption to accommodate the Arduino. Most notably along the way we illustrate that most DLTs throughput scale positively with denser networks, transaction redundancy is the biggest threat to storage overhead, design a two-stage set reconciliation answer for our uniquely bottle-necked environment, and prove that Long-Range Wide-area Network (LoRaWAN) is not viable for a gossip protocol. Our major contributions are: proving the general scalability of DLTs in low power IoT-MANET environments, identifying the bottleneck in P2P gossip, creating the first mobile DLT simulator, and comparing different DLTs/consensus algorithms. Ultimately, our results urge future projects to reject classical PoW and blockchains for more customizable solutions. The simulator can compare and contrast the properties of potential DLT architectures and answer: "What DLT is best?"

Author dc:creator

• Troutman, Nicholas Dana

Contributors dc:contributor

• Shi, Weidong
• Conklin, Arthur
• Gnawali, Omprakash
• Verma, Rakesh M.

• Mathematics
• Computer Science

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

Portions of this document appear in: Troutman, Nicholas, and Weidong Shi. "Survey of Spatially Aware DLTs." ACM Special Issue on Distributed Ledger Technology. Accepted for publication by IEEE, 2025. Troutman, Nicholas, and Weidong Shi. "Which Blockchain is Best? Simulating IoT-MANET DLTs: Network Scalability, Confirmation Time, & Latency in Smart Cars." Paper accepted for presentation at the 2024 6th Conference on Blockchain Research & Applications for Innovative Networks and Services (BRAINS), IEEE, 2024.

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:tdl-ir.tdl.org:10657/18291