Smart-Contract-Based Agricultural Service Platform for Drone Plant Protection Operation Optimization

The platform-based agricultural service is receiving popularity in small-scale farming and shows significant advantages in gathering dispersed service requests and matching supply and demand. However, it also generates new challenges, including service traceability, denial and fraud, information security, and privacy issues. Blockchain is an emerging technology that provides a secure and trusted environment to track and manage the service process. In this study, we propose a blockchain-based service platform for efficient agricultural service operations with the support of Internet of Things technology. Following the smart platform, we use the drone plant protection service as an example and develop a new execution procedure for smart contract-based agricultural services. In the proposed procedure, we focus on integrating optimization methods to deal with multiple service requests as well as potential disruption events and establishing detailed interactions among service plans, smart contracts, and physical services. Moreover, we formulate the drone plant protection issue using a mixed-integer linear programming model to obtain the optimal service plan and develop a recovery model to deal with potential disruptions of new order arrival. Finally, we design detailed smart contract terms for drone plant protection services. Results of numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed optimization model in obtaining the optimal service plan before and after disruptions. Also, we verify the applicability and security of the smart contract on the Ethereum platform based on a three-phase functional test and a comprehensive security test.