A research project funded by French (ANR) agency.
The objective of the Smart IoT for Mobility project is to develop a first trans-disciplinary scientific approach to a new economy,
mainly based on the adoption of a virtual currency and, above all, on the execution of intelligent contracts (Smart Contracts), the
whole being really adaptable to the rising generation of Internet of Things (IoT).
This new economy is based on the disappearance of trusted third parties - typically the banks - or rather on the complete
decentralization of these and the almost systematic adoption of an Internet-type network shared by "customers".
It is necessary to imagine devices (computers, smart phones, embedded communicating architectures...) which are all related
to each others by such a network. Each participant in this network (a customer, a service provider) is identified by a unique
address, assigned when he joins the system, which will be used for its identification in all the transactions he will make.
This model is decentralized as it has no central control authority, unlike the traditional banking model. The Smart IoT for
Mobility project is particularly interested in Smart Contracts, for their central use in this decentralized economy, and on
operational ways to execute and deploy them.
The particular Use Case that will be experimented in this project is the Smart Service Book, that is proposed by Renault Software Labs.
The vehicle accident scene can generates different smart contracts: one for the insurance, one for reparation, one for expertise with
contextual data (describing the impact with photos and/or videos and map position) collected just before the impact.
This special scenario of the “Smart Services Book” can be enriched by other scenarios in the future or during the project, for example,
the predictive maintenance for fleet/lease managements. It can also enable other services, for example for car sharing, individualized
Car Insurance, multi-modality transport or whatever.
In the context of this project, we plan to make an exhaustive study covering all the subjects above. Moreover, Renault SW Labs SAS plans
to use a special internal development hardware kit. It will be plugged in the CAN Diagnostics bus of the car allowing to upload data
including sensors data… The initial plan is to exercise this concept with a Renault ZOE as the vehicle.
This project implies several researchers, from different disciplines, that are all interested in blockchains, smart contracts, or even in decentralized organisations. The global task force is separated into lawyers, experimental economists and economists, computer science specialists and electronics. In addition, this project involves also industrials form Renault and form Symag.
The adoption of Smart Contracts in IoT platforms is the main originality of this project. Smart contracts have the characteristic of being able to read and understand each other and to run at any moment. In addition to the work mainly carried out by Gavin Wood on Ethereum on the first blockchain and smart contracts application development platform, we believe it is necessary to seize this revolution and adapt it to the case of IoT architectures. Some lawyers asked the question whether blockchain is a revolution or just an evolution. It is sure than whatever it is, Law is essential to accompany and regulate those new technologies. Concerning the adoption perspective and questions of acceptability of these new digital devices, smart contracts conduct to the emergence of a new “blockchain economy” which has been recently studied regarding its governance transformations. This project aims at discussing some unexplored questions, such as: how is trust affected by the blockchain economy; what is the role of institutions in the blockchain economy, how is system use incentivized in the blockchain economy, how do business models shape the blockchain economy? These questions have started to be explored with the production of preliminary results in the Smart IoT for Mobility project.
A research project funded by French (ANR) agency.
The first scientific field in which the “Smart IoT for Mobility” project will have an impact is the electronics and computer science field. The project’s results will have a strong effect in all the embedded system that needs to be in contact, by any medium, every time and in a trusted way.
The second field is the economic and the especially experimental economy field where this project should be the first life-size test of a multidisciplinary experience for the computer and electronic community. The last field is of course the legal and law field where the adoption of new technologies will have a strong impact on our lives and thus, must absolutely be reviewed by the law.
Concerning the technological transfer, this project has a real impact on the vehicle constructors, where the blockchain is studied extensively for having a real impact on the mobility of users. The result of this project is expected to be in the roadmap of Renault. For Symag, the real gain will be in the Blocksy API licences that could be adopted by the embedded systems builders.
It is obvious that the SMART IOT project should be one of the first truly transdisciplinary approaches to a new, much more participative and cooperative economy, between human actors and integrated services within objects or cars, which should be the main societal innovation in the years to come. Smart contracts are becoming more and more necessary both for users of mobility services but also for a whole lot of other services such as e-health, travel, assisted visits, etc... Smart contracts would be in this case the assurance that a good that would be bought by anyone could be guaranteed, and when this one is a service the benefit for the whole population becomes obvious.
But these smart contracts can not be disconnected from the concept of transaction chain – or blockchain – because it is the only way to ensure that a smart contract can be guaranteed without error. The smart contract that a service offers us is the one that has been edited by the developers. The concept of blockchain is therefore vital both for smart contracts but also for service users! The citizen economy, with no other trusted third party than the service provider, is essential for the future and this will necessarily involve transaction chains.
Most of the research that will be carried out in this project will be mainly based on open source software available in open access. In addition to the information that has been given so far, we would like to inform the ANR that the entire “Smart IoT for Mobility” project will be hosted on a WEB site, to disseminate as much information as possible about the project but also about on a GIT Lab site, hosted by the University Cote d’Azur, which will be, at first, strictly private and shared by the partners of the project. In addition, all work intended to be published or work intended for the general public will be hosted on the Overleaf site (www.overleaf.com).
A research project funded by French (ANR) agency.
A research project funded by French (ANR) agency.
A research project funded by French (ANR) agency.
A research project funded by French (ANR) agency.