A Cluster-Based Data Transmission Strategy for Blockchain Network in the Industrial Internet of Things

The proliferation of devices and data in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has rendered the traditional centralized cloud model unable to meet the stringent requirements of wide-scale and low latency in these IIoT scenarios. As emerging technologies, edge computing enables real-time processing and analysis on devices situated closer to the data source while reducing bandwidth requirements. Blockchain, being decentralized, could enhance data security. Therefore, edge computing and blockchain are integrated in IIoT to reduce latency and improve security. However, the inefficient data transmission of blockchain leads to increased transmission latency in the IIoT. To address this issue, we propose a cluster-based data transmission strategy (CDTS) for blockchain network. Initially, an improved weighted label propagation algorithm (WLPA) is proposed for clustering blockchain nodes. Subsequently, a spanning tree topology construction (STTC) is designed to simplify the blockchain network topology, based on the above node clustering results. Additionally, leveraging clustered nodes and tree topology, we propose a data transmission strategy to speed up data transmission. Simulation experiments show that CDTS effectively reduces data transmission time and better supports large-scale IIoT scenarios.