Smart communities require mechanisms for participants to exchange resources and coordinate services without relying on centralized authorities or third parties. Blockchain technology enables trustworthy transactions but faces scalability and verification challenges. SolidWorx is innovative because it combines efficient off-chain optimization with blockchain verification, enabling scalable and trustworthy resource allocation while maintaining transparency and preventing fraud.
This paper presents SolidWorx, a blockchain-based decentralized transaction platform for smart and connected communities that enables resource allocation and energy trading among distributed participants. The system uses a hybrid approach combining off-blockchain linear program solvers with blockchain-based smart contracts for verification and execution. The platform addresses trust, privacy, and resource allocation challenges in community-based resource exchange applications.
SolidWorx successfully enabled resource allocation and energy trading among distributed participants in community applications including carpooling and energy futures markets. The hybrid solver architecture optimized resource allocations more efficiently than blockchain-only approaches while maintaining auditability through smart contract verification. The platform demonstrated practical feasibility for community-scale resource management without centralized control.
@inproceedings{Eisele2018,
author = {Eisele, Scott and Laszka, Aron and Mavridou, Anastasia and Dubey, Abhishek},
booktitle = {IEEE} International Conference on Internet of Things and Blockchains},
title = {SolidWorx: {A} Resilient and Trustworthy Transactive Platform for Smart and Connected Communities},
year = {2018},
pages = {1263--1272},
acceptance = {15.3},
abstract = {Internet of Things and data sciences are fueling the development of innovative solutions for various applications in Smart and Connected Communities (SCC). These applications provide participants with the capability to exchange not only data but also resources, which raises the concerns of integrity, trust, and above all the need for fair and optimal solutions to the problem of resource allocation. This exchange of information and resources leads to a problem where the stakeholders of the system may have limited trust in each other. Thus, collaboratively reaching consensus on when, how, and who should access certain resources becomes problematic. This paper presents SolidWorx, a blockchain-based platform that provides key mechanisms required for arbitrating resource consumption across different SCC applications in a domain-agnostic manner. For example, it introduces and implements a hybrid-solver pattern, where complex optimization computation is handled off-blockchain while solution validation is performed by a smart contract. To ensure correctness, the smart contract of SolidWorx is generated and verified using a model-based approach.},
bibsource = {dblp computer science bibliography, https://dblp.org},
biburl = {https://dblp.org/rec/bib/conf/ithings/EiseleLMD18},
category = {selectiveconference},
contribution = {lead},
doi = {10.1109/Cybermatics\_2018.2018.00221},
file = {:Eisele2018-SolidWorx_A_Resilient_and_Trustworthy_Transactive_Platform_for_Smart_and_Connected_Communities.pdf:PDF},
keywords = {blockchain, smart contracts, resource allocation, energy trading, decentralized systems},
project = {cps-blockchains,transactive-energy},
tag = {decentralization,power},
timestamp = {Wed, 16 Oct 2019 14:14:56 +0200},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1109/Cybermatics\_2018.2018.00221}
}