ISRaft Consensus Algorithm for Autonomous Units

Abstract

Consensus protocols are a key feature in decentral-ized systems where multiple unreliable nodes operate, e.g., in Blockchain technologies with many worldwide applications such as supply chain management, cryptocurrencies and information sharing. ISRaft is a consensus protocol built upon Raft, a previously developed protocol that is used for replicated state machines when a group of nodes is required to achieve a consensus related to the state of the machine. This paper therefore proposes an alternative version of the ISRaft consensus protocol to allow communication among nodes in a secured fashion while maintaining the security features of the original ISRaft algorithm even in the presence of adversarial nodes. The proposed model utilizes a trust parameter to enforce cooperation, i.e., a trust value is assigned to each node to prevent malicious activities over time. This is a practical solution for autonomous units with resource-constrained devices where a regular encrypted communication method can negatively affect the system performance.