Department of Defense
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Blockchain applications in the Department of Defense (DoD) are in abundance, with massive supply chains, inventory controls, and other potential uses to improve efficiency and communication across the multitude of DoD entities.
The Blockchain Research Group (BRG) recently contributed to a report coordinated by the Value Technology Foundation, joined by nine firms, who work in the DoD contracting space in authoring the white paper, “Potential Use of Blockchain By the U.S. Department of Defense.” The paper outlines some of the applications that have been identified as key Blockchain contributors to the DoD.
The group is currently working on two DoD projects, VIPART and the Craft TSS. VIPART is described below and the Craft TSS project highlighted on the Industry page.
VIPART
In collaboration with ITAMCO, Simba Chain and Boeing, the Center for Research Computing have been working on the Verifiability, Identifiability Physical Assets for Real-time Traceability (VIPART) project for NAVAIR. Long value chains are among the biggest security issues in manufacturing for Industry 4.0. This is the case for all manufacturing but is especially critical in military applications, for tracking, custody, traceability, and where hostile entities would attempt to obtain or modify critical data.
VIPART aims to specify and build a complete blockchain solution which will be used to create a permanent, verifiable record of exchange, with the data representing physical assets. We will provide an initial study for the feasibility of a pilot program to use a Blockchain to monitor the movement of physical assets for NAVAIR Fleet Readiness Center Southwest (FRCSW). This effort will determine how FRCSW physical assets can be tracked and reconciled in real-time as they are transferred or taken off-line. The resulting system architecture will:
- Specify the information needed.
- Define how data flows and tracking takes place among components within current systems such as Siemens TeamCenter and NAVSUP ERP SAP system.
- Define the hardware/software needed for connectivity and integration.
- Map to existing FRCSW systems.
- Ensure safeguards are established to maintain compliance with NAVAIR Information Assurance Authority to operate Information systems/software.
In this project, the team has been working with Hyperledger Fabric that is configured to run the Burrow EVM. The BRG has also built B2MML and SQL connectors that can be configured to collect data and auto generate smart contracts based on the configured schemas.
Need more information?
For more information on the Blockchain Research Group, please contact Ian Taylor.