SBIR Phase I: Hybrid Blockchain to enable safe and transparent distribution of perishable goods

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为供应链中多方之间的交易提供开放和安全的管理。整个供应链缺乏透明的信息，已经侵蚀了许多易腐产品及其所代表的品牌的信任和价值。拟议的项目以可信的方式解决了食品跟踪和可追溯性的当前问题。通过开发传感器感知的混合bb0，参与商品分销的所有各方将通过将交易输入安全bb1来确保食品质量得到维持。其结果是双重的：消费者将确信他们得到了正确的商品，供应商可以相信他们的产品是高质量交付的。虽然最初专注于20亿美元的食品交易市场，但商业潜力将扩大到需要安全可追溯性的更广泛产品，包括消费品、送货上门和医疗产品。该SBIR第一阶段项目建议开发混合区块链的核心技术，并在实时商业环境中测试其功能。该技术代表了一流的解决方案，利用区块链和dag（有向无环图）与集成传感器和混合数据集来解决食品的易腐性。区块链模型将假设事务是数据传输的事件，并且即使在小规模的供应链网络中也可能存在许多脱节的事件。为了可追溯性，将设计新的算法，使使用几何和伪布尔函数在分配唯一代码的系统之上连接不相关的事件成为可能。该实现使用多变量时间序列和节点特征对数据集进行有意义的聚合和分解，例如由传感器和参与成员收集的数据。将这样的多变量时间序列放在图上，参与者是节点，它们的成对关系作为边，该技术将解决新的优化问题，实现有效的实时监控，并有助于进一步保证交易的完整性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is to provide open and secure management of transactions between multiple parties in a supply chain. The lack of transparent information throughout the supply chain has eroded the trust and value of many perishable products and the brands they represent. The proposed project addresses the current issue of tracking and traceability of food products in a trusted manner. Through the development of a hybrid blockchain that is sensor aware, all the parties involved in the distribution of the goods will ensure that the food quality is maintained by entering transactions into a secure blockchain. The result is two-fold: consumers will be assured that they are getting the right goods and suppliers can trust that their products are being delivered with quality. While initially focused on the $2 billion food transaction market, the commercial potential will expand to a broader range of products that require secure traceability including consumer goods, home delivery and medical products.This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop the core technology for the hybrid blockchain and test the functionality in a live commercial setting. The technology represents the first-in-class solution that leverages blockchain and DAGs (directed acyclic graphs) with integrated sensor and hybrid datasets to address the perishable nature of food products. The blockchain model will assume that a transaction is an event of data transfer and that there can be many disjointed events even on a small-scale supply chain network. For traceability, novel algorithms will be designed, making it feasible to connect disjointed events using geometry and a pseudo-Boolean function on top of a system that assigns a unique code. This implementation uses multivariate time series and node features for the meaningful aggregation and disaggregation of datasets, such as data collected by sensors and participating members. Putting such multivariate time series on the graph where participants are nodes with their pairwise relations as edges, the technology will address the novel optimization problem for efficient real-time monitoring and assist in providing further assurance of transaction integrity.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.