As part of a larger research project on the implementation of secure decentralised computing infrastructures, we focus on the use of Network Coding (NC) to minimise transaction overhead in Distributed Ledgers (DL) (permissioned blockchains).

The project scope includes analysing the current state of the art in both Error Correcting Codes (ECC) and DL consensus mechanisms to identify the underlying infrastructures, challenges and possible solutions. The proposed research additionally paves the way for securing DL against the threats of weak cryptography, and enables higher transaction rates in consensus mechanisms.

The research and development conducted in this project consists of five main tasks. These tasks are:

• Development of an NC-based framework for a permissioned DL using ECC.
• Investigation of the efficiency of Random Linear NC (RLNC) for different network topologies.
• Comparison between Store-and-Forward (SF) and RLNC.
• Investigation of the different consensus methods and their influence on the performance and security of the system.
• Implementation of a prototype on suitable hardware platforms and realisation of performance benchmarks.

• Braun, M., Wiesmaier, A. & Alnahawi, N. Efficient practical Byzantine consensus using random linear network coding. Ann. Telecommun. 78, 33-51 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12243-022-00930-x.
• M. Braun, A. Wiesmaier, N. Alnahawi and J. Geißler, "On Message-based Consensus and Network Coding," 2021 12th International Conference on Network of the Future (NoF), Coimbra, Portugal, 2021, pp. 1-9, doi: 10.1109/NoF52522.2021.9609913.