RUDN University mathematicians have improved the performance of the blockchain system. The researchers managed to increase the throughput of the system by almost 1.5 times and reduce the delay time. The results are published in Computers & Industrial Engineering.

Blockchain technology is considered a promising system that will be widely used in banking to medicine. It is based on a special way of transferring and storing data between member elements. Information is stored as a chain of blocks. Violation in one block is immediately noticeable to the entire system. Despite a large number of possible applications, several drawbacks make it difficult to scale up. For example, the calculation of each block can take a long time. As a result, the throughput of the system decreases and the delay time increases. RUDN mathematicians built a model in which they combined blockchain technology with optimization methods and improved the system performance by almost one and a half times.

“Blockchain technology has revolutionized the processing and storage of data in terms of reliability and security. Blockchain made it possible to transfer processing to a decentralized secure platform. It is rightfully considered an efficient technology of the future that will benefit various industries. The problem that becomes a “bottleneck” for blockchain applications is limited bandwidth,” said Ammar Muthanna, Ph.D., Junior Researcher at the Scientific Center for Modeling High-tech Systems and Info communication Modeling at RUDN University.

Mathematicians have created a system with intelligent traffic control. For this, a hybrid model is used that combines optimization using the so-called particle swarm method and fuzzy logic. The particle swarm method is needed to find the optimal delay time, send rate, and the number of transactions. Fuzzy logic is used to automate traffic control. RUDN University mathematicians tested the model on the service for clinical trials and then compared the results with other options.

The system for clinical trials, which was used by RUDN University mathematicians, consists of five participants - a patient, a research doctor, a coordinator, a researcher, and a chief physician. Each has its own set of functions and data that it must exchange with other participants. The processing of clinical data passes through the blockchain network. The new approach increased network bandwidth and minimized delays. Transaction throughput increased by 38.5% and latency decreased by 40.5%. The scope is not limited to the considered service. This model can be applied to other tools that use blockchain technology.

“Latency and throughput are considered the main performance metrics that speak to the efficiency of an information system. The proposed model improved the network by maximizing throughput and minimizing latency. It can be easily integrated into other existing blockchain-based platforms to increase productivity,” said Ammar Muthanna, Ph.D., Junior Researcher at the Scientific Center for Modeling High-tech Systems and Info communication Modeling at RUDN University.