IOTA Tangle-Based Secure Micropayment Architecture for Autonomous Vehicle Charging in IoT Ecosystem

Abstract

This study presents a secure and scalable micro-payment architecture for wireless charging of autonomous electric vehicles in IoT-enabled smart city infrastructures. Traditional blockchain-based systems face limitations in real-time micro-payment scenarios due to transaction fees, latency, and high energy consumption. In contrast, IOTA’s Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG)-based distributed ledger, Tangle, offers a feeless, highly scalable, and low-computational alternative well-suited for decentralized mobility ecosystems. A simulation environment was developed using Raspberry Pi 4 devices and WebSocket-based APIs to model real-time payment interactions. To ensure secure data transmission and transaction validation on the IOTA testnet, Masked Authenticated Messaging (MAM) channels were integrated. The proposed system enables lightweight, real-time, and tamper-resistant micro-payments without reliance on miners or central authorities. Results demonstrate the feasibility of integrating DAG-based ledgers with IoT devices for autonomous energy transactions. This work contributes to the literature by bridging the gap between theoretical models and practical implementations of secure micro-payment systems in autonomous mobility. Furthermore, it lays the groundwork for future research on decentralized energy markets, vehicle-to-grid (V2G) interactions, and trustless IoT communication protocols.

Keywords

• IOTA Tangle
• Autonomous Vehicle
• Internet of Things
• Micro-Payment
• Wireless Charging
• MAM
• Raspberry Pi

IoT Ekosisteminde Otonom Araç Şarjı için IOTA Tangle Tabanlı Güvenli Mikro Ödeme Mimarisi

Öz

Bu çalışma, Nesnelerin İnterneti (Internet of Things, IoT) destekli akıllı şehir altyapılarında otonom elektrikli araçların kablosuz şarj süreçleri için güvenli ve ölçeklenebilir bir mikro ödeme mimarisi sunmaktadır. Geleneksel blokzincir tabanlı sistemler işlem ücretleri, gecikme süreleri ve enerji verimsizliği gibi nedenlerle gerçek zamanlı mikro ödeme senaryolarında sınırlı uygulanabilirliğe sahiptir. Buna karşılık, IOTA’nın Yönlendirilmiş Döngüsüz Grafik (Directed Acyclic Graph, DAG) tabanlı dağıtık defteri olan Tangle, ücretsiz işlem yapısı, yüksek ölçeklenebilirlik ve düşük hesaplama yükü ile merkeziyetsiz mobilite ekosistemleri için uygun bir alternatif sunmaktadır. Gerçek zamanlı ödeme etkileşimlerini simüle etmek amacıyla Raspberry Pi 4 cihazları ve WebSocket tabanlı API’ler kullanılarak bir simülasyon ortamı geliştirilmiştir. IOTA test ağı üzerinde güvenli veri iletimi ve işlem doğrulaması sağlamak için Maskelenmiş Doğrulanmış Mesajlaşma (Masked Authenticated Messaging, MAM) kanalları entegre edilmiştir. Önerilen sistem, madenciye veya merkezi otoriteye ihtiyaç duymadan hafif, gerçek zamanlı ve saldırılara karşı dayanıklı mikro ödemelere imkân tanımaktadır. Bulgular, otonom enerji işlemleri için DAG tabanlı defterlerin IoT cihazlarıyla entegre edilmesinin uygulanabilirliğini göstermektedir. Çalışma, otonom mobilitede güvenli mikro ödeme sistemlerinin teorik modelleri ile pratik uygulamaları arasındaki boşluğu doldurarak literatüre katkıda bulunmaktadır. Ayrıca, merkezi olmayan enerji piyasaları, araçtan şebekeye (Vehicle-to-Grid, V2G) etkileşimleri ve güven gerektirmeyen IoT iletişim protokolleri üzerine gelecekteki araştırmalar için zemin hazırlamaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• IOTA Tangle
• Otonom Araç
• Nesnelerin İnterneti
• Mikro Ödeme
• Kablosuz Şarj
• Maskelenmiş Doğrulanmış Mesajlaşma
• Raspberry Pi

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