FAITH: A Fast Blockchain-Assisted Edge Computing Platform for Healthcare Applications

The Internet of Medical Things is developing rapidly in recent years. However, the timeliness and security of healthcare applications challenge its adoption. In this article, we propose a blockchain-assisted edge computing platform that timely and securely processes time-sensitive healthcare applications. We propose a blockchain-assisted framework that leverages distributed edge servers to achieve fast data processing. We design smart contracts to verify the identity and data credibility of network entities. We formulate the problem as a directed acyclic graph organized scheduling model and develop online orchestrating algorithms to meet the timeliness requirement. We implement the blockchain prototype and evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm under extensive configurations. Results show that fast blockchain-assisted edge computing platform for healthcare achieves a significant timeliness guarantee, and at the same time outperforms conventional schemes from the latency perspective.