BHMUS: Blockchain Based Secure Outdoor Health Monitoring Scheme Using UAV in Smart City

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is an emerging technology that becomes popular not only in military operation but also in civil applications. Internet of things (IoT) is another popular technology which brings automation in our daily life. Like other areas, IoT also exposes its potential in healthcare. Using IoT sensors, it becomes easy to monitor the health of a user remotely. UAV consolidated with mobile edge computing (MEC) can provide real-time services in outdoor health monitoring. However, communication among them surrounds with cyber threats and data integrity issue. Blockchain is a data structure in which data are shared among peers. In this paper, a blockchain based secure outdoor health monitoring scheme using UAV is proposed for a smart city. In the proposed scheme, health data (HD) are accumulated from users wearable sensors and these HD are transmitted to the nearest MEC server via UAV. Prior to transmitting to MEC, HD experience encryption in order to provide protection against cyber threats. Moreover, after arriving at MEC, HD are diagnosed and if any abnormalities are found in the user’s health, MEC server notifies the user and the nearest hospitals. When the processing is completed, HD are stored in blockchain with the consent of validators. Finally, simulation results and experimental set up are discussed in order to manifest the feasibility of the proposed scheme.