Decentralized solutions for the digitalization of industry and smart cities and communities

Financiers

The research program addresses decentralized approaches and solutions for the digital transformation of industry and smart cities and communities.

Distributed ledger technologies (DLT) and blockchain technologies are a digital security solution that in a unique way ensures trusted exchange and processing of messages without centralized entities. They are the basis for decentralized applications that enable machine autonomy. In connection with  cyber-physical systems they enable new technological solutions and new business models.

Within the research program we will explore in particular:

• harmonization and technological bases of decentralized solutions for smart cities and communities; specific requirements of smart city and community user scenarios; scaling solutions for broad user adoption;
• architectures of decentralized solutions for digital transformation in industry in the direction of decentralized product lifecycle management of industrial and production systems, and virtualization as part of decentralized industrial applications;
• cyber security of decentralized solutions, including the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain security aspects; privacy; digital identities;
• approaches to integrating decentralized solutions into the architectures of modern 5G / 6G networks to ensure operational performance, fault tolerance and cyber security;
• user centred design approaches and methodologies of digital (user) interfaces and interactions for users of decentralized solutions.

Within the proposed research programme, we will provide scientific understanding and professional recognition of the Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) and the possible solutions, based on DLTs. These include:

• understanding and matching the gap between the needs of smart city and smart industry application domains, and DLT opportunities,
• investigating the stakeholder and user perspectives towards DLT applications for better acceptance, and usability of the anticipated DLT systems,
• proofs-of-concepts for initial laboratory experimentation and validation and
• solving some fundamental questions on DLT architectures and security, relevant for scaling from laboratory to relevant environments, with potential impact on standardization in DLT.

Project Partners

• Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za elektrotehniko
• Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za strojništvo
• Univerza v Mariboru, Filozofska fakulteta