BUS-health: Blockchain and UAV-integrated smart medical supplies

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have recently sparked attention in the logistics supply chain. However, using UAVs in logistics has challenges related to security, data integrity, and trustworthiness in the healthcare industry. To address these issues, this paper introduces a blockchain-integrated scheme to improve the security and trustworthiness of medical supply delivery by leveraging UAVs. Blockchain, a distributed ledger system, enables transparent and reliable participant interactions. The proposed approach employs a sophisticated two-phase verification mechanism to tackle security concerns. The initial phase employs α-hash bloom filter to verify the integrity of data and identify any unauthorized senders. In the second step, digital signature methods authenticate the sender's identity, guaranteeing the data's integrity and prohibiting unauthorized entry. Smart contracts ensure transactions maintain trustworthiness, data integrity, and security without alteration. The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) protocol addresses storage cost issues. Introducing the 5G-enabled Tactile Internet (TI) enhances communication by being more responsive and efficient. The proposed approach creates a credit scoring mechanism for UAV role selection to improve the delivery process swiftly. The scheme surpasses traditional systems in key performance metrics, and comparing the model's validity with several existing schemes illustrates the proposed scheme's efficacy and feasibility. This scheme could efficiently tackle challenges in providing unmanned medical supplies in smart healthcare systems using blockchain, smart contracts, IPFS, and TI.