IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July 2018 - 74

where devices can bargain energy [9] for optimized energy
consumption [13]. Smart cities and their different components,
such as smart energy, smart transportation, and smart health
care [14], could benefit as well. In smart energy, the blockchain may be used to enable energy trading among neighbors.
In smart transportation, it could allow intelligent vehicles to
pay for fast lanes. In smart health care, the blockchain may be
used as a shared ledger recording patients' medical histories.
Finally, the blockchain could successfully enable the traceability of CE products [8], e.g., to identify counterfeit items.
The proposed work aims to address one of the emerging
fields of CE, in-vehicle technology, and investigate how the
joint use of sensors embedded in an electronic device installed
onboard and of blockchain could support on-demand insurance. Several projects have examined the added value of
blockchain in the context of in-vehicle technology, intelligent
(autonomous) vehicles and, in general, mobility. The Oaken
project [17] proposes a solution for allowing vehicles to autonomously pay tolls using cryptocurrencies. The work reported
in [9] suggests a similar approach, where a vehicle could use
the blockchain for purchasing electricity. The La'Zooz project
[18] has a more ambitious goal, planning to be the "blockchained version of Uber." The Dovu project [19] focuses on
collecting mobility data using vehicles' sensors and exploiting
the blockchain to reward users based on shared data.
Blockchain technology has been extensively investigated
in the insurance field [15]. The Dynamis project [20] provides peer-to-peer unemployment insurances based on a
user's LinkedIn profile data. The InsurETH project [21] uses
smart contracts to automatically refund insured customers in

case of flight delays. The LenderBot project [16] focuses on
microinsurance and records data related to loaned items on
the blockchain. Finally, the EverLedger [22] initiative records
diamond data on the blockchain to reduce jewelry fraud.
Similar to the Dynamis, InsurETH, and LenderBot projects,
we propose using the blockchain to record undersigned policies. Nonetheless, in these initiatives policies could only be
activated manually by the users, while our approach relies on
sensors embedded in an electronic device to be installed
onboard to make coverage activation/deactivation semiautomatic. We propose storing on the blockchain additional vehicle
data, such as the vehicle's pictures hash. In this way, the vehicle status at any given time can be certified and inspected by
the insurer before paying claims, helping to reduce the occurrence of fraud.

ProPosed sYsTem
The proposed system is composed of a mobile app and a portable electronic device to be installed on the vehicle. The app is
used to manually activate/deactivate coverage, whereas the
electronic device is used to enable changes in automatic coverage based on the number of passengers onboard and the vehicle's location. Figure 1 depicts the architecture of the system.
Two parts can be distinguished, corresponding to two phases,
i.e., policy undersigning and policy inspection/modification.
During policy undersigning, the customer can make a
request for a new on-demand policy using the mobile app. The
server creates a new insurance smart contract and deploys it on
the Ethereum blockchain (a well-known blockchain supporting
smart contracts). After deployment, the customer is requested to

Server

Mobile
Application

Smart-Contract
Creation

New Policy Request
Funds Transfer
Policy
Undersigning

Database

Policy
Inspection/
Modification

- Coverage Inspection
- (Manual) Coverage Activation/Deactivation
Electronic
Device

Customer
Requests Forward

Reverse SSH
Tunneling

Server

Sensors:

(Automatic)
Smart
Coverage Activation/
Contract
Database
Deactivation

- Number of Passengers
- Safety Belts
- GPS Location
FigUre 1. The architecture of the system. GPS: global positioning system; SSH: secure shell.

74 IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine

july 2018

Blockchain

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July 2018