Why Blockchain Developers Should Consider Designing dApps for Self-Driving Cars
There is a reason car companies are investing big money in blockchain, with automated vehicles in mind. BMW, Ford, Renault and General Motors are a few of the companies joining the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative. Porsche is promising to invest $176 million into startups, including blockchain projects. Porsche Ventures invested in Berlin’s Gapless earlier this year.
A lot of these brands are floating trials in one way or another: Mercedes-Benz is rewarding some drivers with a cryptocurrency, MobiCoin, for safe driving. BMW is working with Circulor to ethically source cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as partnering with startup Bloom to make car-buying easier. Renault has invested in building a blockchain for car repair data with Microsoft, running on Microsoft Azure. Volkswagen has already filed a patent for inter-vehicular communication and invited (and invested) in Lithuania startup carVertical at their Future Mobility Incubator in Dresden, Germany.
But most important of all, those technologies will probably go toward securing a network of automated vehicle services and the integrity of data used by them. Volkswagen has already filed a patent for inter-vehicular communication, which ties in with the development of self-driving car networks that will rely on vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication. Here is a potential — probable — list of use cases specifically beneficial to autonomous automobiles.
Protecting the Integrity of Data for Self-Driving Cars
Between 1970 and 2005, the IEEE says the cost of electronics in car manufacturing went from 5 to 15 percent. With full vehicle automation just years away from taking over the road, companies need to protect the data that onboard computer systems generate and receive V2V or V2I to determine how to make turns and what speed to go.
Several cybersecurity companies are focused on autonomous vehicles — Argus and even Blackberry — yet it is still a work in progress. Hacking even non-autonomous vehicles is a substantial threat to companies. Chrysler recalled 1.4 million cars in 2015 when two security experts killed a Jeep engine while it was in transit. Data tampering is one of the concerns these companies and manufacturers face. Blockchain would authenticate and insulate data from hacking attacks, one of the more discussed vulnerabilities of automated driving systems. With self-driving cars dependent on the accuracy of data collected from different cars and other sources on the road, immutability along a distributed network, which is already a security measure in and of itself, becomes even more critical to ensure this crucial data is protected from hackers.
Decentralizing Car Rental and Fleet Tracking
The ultimate vision for ridesharing startups and auto manufacturers is to deploy a fleet of self-driving vehicles. Renting these vehicles from a service — Car-as-a-Service if you will — would replace standard car ownership. Here, companies could track the entire activity timeline of a car once it is rented, from pick-up to drop-off. That way, miles can be recorded, GPS tracking initiated to know where it went, and even if only permitted drivers got behind the wheel.
Rather than working through a car’s owner, a potential renter can go straight to the car they want to rent. The vehicle could automatically grant access to said renter. The startup DAV — Decentralized Autonomous Vehicles — is already building out such a network. It could be a bridge for renting autonomous vehicles on-demand.
Multi-Party Access and Increased Security Measures
Just the same, a test by Porsche showed it successfully and securely share joint access to a car via an app. Car owners can, at a moment’s notice, authorize access to a friend or family member who might want to borrow a car. Given the unique key signatures of users, blockchain can authenticate only permissioned users are using the vehicles.
In the event of theft, the car can be rendered immobile by cutting off access to the driver or simply telling the car to automatically pull over and shut down. Even better, hypothetically a car may be told to take a direct route to a police station while informing a thief it was on a different route. The authorities could be alerted simultaneously.
Conclusion
More and more, automobile manufacturers resemble data analytics companies. Since the 1948 debut of the Buick Dynaflow automatic transmission, cars have continued to adopt machinery to make driving smoother. The last several years have seen a breakout, with the incorporation of onboard computerized dashboards and cameras.
The shift toward self-driving cars means data accuracy and data security are more important on the road than at any time in human history. Securing that information and making sure fleets or individual vehicles run smoothly will be critical. Even if not battling malicious actors, blockchain can protect and certify information from unintended alterations. It is only a matter of time before blockchain completely encapsulates the automotive world.
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