Blockchain-Based UAV Path Planning for Healthcare 4.0: Current Challenges and the Way Ahead

The Internet of Things (IoT) provides billions of Internet-enabled devices connections across the globe. In the IoT era, the healthcare industry has grown up from Healthcare 1.0 to Healthcare 4.0. As in Healthcare 3.0, patients visit hospital for their regular checkups, which increases the overall expenditure on medical treatment. However, with the recent technological advancements such as UAVs and blockchain, healthcare problems are solved with minimum payments and security of shared medical data. Motivated by these facts, this article provides blockchain-based UAV path planning to provide privacy-preservation in Healthcare 4.0. We propose a three-layered architecture for real-time collection, processing, and transmission of medical data. The proposed architecture provides a distributed platform for UAVs that ensures security and privacy for the transfer of medical data from one location to another with the proof of work (PoW) consensus mechanism. The simulation results show that the proposed model provides an effective solution for reliable data transmission and privacy-preserving sensitive healthcare information against potential threats. The comparative analysis also demonstrates the performance improvements in sharing medical data with patients and doctors. In summary, this article provides insights into the end users for the use of blockchain with UAVs in Healthcare 4.0 for future research directions.

Automated summary

The healthcare industry has evolved from Healthcare 1.0 to Healthcare 4.0 in the IoT era, with advancements such as UAVs and blockchain addressing privacy concerns and providing cost-effective solutions for medical data sharing and security. The proposed blockchain-based UAV path planning architecture offers a secure and efficient platform for real-time medical data collection and transmission.