Proof-of-communication-capability based authentication in blockchain-enabled wireless autonomous vehicular networks

Blockchain technology is finding applications in wireless networks, in particular vehicular networks, for the purposes of establishing trust. A certain set of network resources in terms of communication and computation requirements is also necessary for successful blockchain deployment. Moreover, heterogeneity in wireless networks and changing radio conditions at the physical layer, make it even more challenging to guarantee steady block generation latency. In this work, we study the possible denial of blockchain service attacks where malicious nodes threaten to slow down the block generation latency. We propose a novel Proof-of-Communication-Capability (PoCC) authentication framework that acts as a defense against communication capability spoofing over wireless networks. Our PoCC authentication framework utilizes physical properties such as distance between nodes, channel state information (CSI), and communication puzzle latency to establish the communication capabilities of nodes in the wireless network. Results from a simulated AV network under three different variations of the proposed PoCC framework are encouraging and demonstrate that such attacks can be effectively mitigated.