Interoperable IoRT for Healthcare: Securing Intelligent Systems with Decentralized Blockchain

Integration of the internet of things (IoT) and robotics into the internet of robotic things (IoRT) presents inherent security and trust challenges. This article introduces an innovative blockchain-centred framework designed to address these challenges. By harnessing the features of oneM2M and blockchain technology, the architecture enhances accessibility, security and data management within IoRT. Encompassing key aspects such as data flow, user authentication, health data management and security, the proposed framework ensures compliance with the oneM2M standard. A notable contribution is the integration of a private blockchain network on ZedBoard development boards, focusing on access control and data integrity verification. External IoT data are securely transmitted to a cloud platform hosted on AWS, ensuring streamlined data management with minimal impact on the resources of ZedBoards. In a stride towards bolstering IoRT security, the study implements elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA) with Radix-2w optimizations on ZedBoards, demonstrating a significant 58.63% reduction in addition operation costs compared to standard ECDSA. The practical implementation on ZedBoards validates the effectiveness of this approach, offering a comprehensive solution for securing IoRT networks. This research caters to industries relying on the seamless integration of IoT and robotics, concluding with noteworthy findings and suggesting potential avenues for future research, including optimizations in hardware/software co-design for ECDSA on Zynq boards.