The vehicular Internet of Things (IoT) comprises enabling technologies for a large number of important applications including collaborative autonomous driving and advanced transportation systems. Due to the mobility of vehicles, strict application requirements, and limited communication resources, the conventional centralized control fails to provide sufficient quality of service for connected vehicles, so a decentralized approach is required in the vicinity to satisfy the requirements of delay-sensitive and mission-critical applications. A decentralized system is also more resistant to the single point of failure problem and malicious attacks. Blockchain technology has been attracting great interest due to its capability of achieving a decentralized, transparent, and tamper-resistant system. There are many studies focusing on the use of blockchain in managing data and transactions in vehicular environments. However, the application of blockchain in vehicular environments also faces some technical challenges. In this paper, we first explain the fundamentals of blockchain and vehicular IoT. Then, we conduct a literature review on the existing research efforts of the blockchain for vehicular IoT by discussing the research problems and technical issues. After that, we point out some future research issues considering the characteristics of both blockchain and vehicular IoT.

The digital twin (DT) paradigm represents a groundbreaking shift in the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) landscape, acting as an instantaneous digital replica of physical entities. This synthesis not only refines vehicular design but also substantially augments driver support systems and streamlines traffic governance. Diverging from the prevalent research which predominantly examines DT’s technical assimilation within IoV infrastructures, this review focuses on the specific deployments and goals of DT within the IoV sphere. Through an extensive review of scholarly works from the past 5 years, this paper provides a fresh and detailed perspective on the significance of DT in the realm of IoV. The applications are methodically categorized across four pivotal sectors: industrial manufacturing, driver assistance technology, intelligent transportation networks, and resource administration. This classification sheds light on DT’s diverse capabilities to confront and adapt to the intricate challenges in contemporary vehicular networks. The intent of this comprehensive overview is to catalyze innovation within IoV by providing an essential reference for researchers who aspire to swiftly grasp the complex dynamics of this evolving domain.

Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is a network that connects vehicles and everything. IoV shares traffic data by connecting vehicles with the surrounding environment, which brings huge potential to people’s life. However, a large number of connections and data sharing will seriously consume vehicle resources during the interaction. In addition, how to build a safe and reliable connection to ensure vehicle safety is also an issue to consider. To solve the above problems, researchers introduce blockchains into IoV to build a safe and reliable vehicle network relying on the distributed account structure, immutable, transparent and security features of blockchains. We have investigated the application of blockchains in IoV in recent years, and have summarized and compared these studies according to their purposes. On this basis, we also point out the future trends and opportunities.

Edge computing has emerged as a promising solution to reduce communication delays and enhance the performance of real-time applications. However, due to the limited processing power of edge servers, it is challenging to achieve efficient task processing. In this paper, we propose a Q-learning-based load-balancing method that optimizes the distribution of real-time tasks between edge servers and cloud servers to reduce processing time. The proposed method is dynamic and adaptive, taking into account the constantly changing network status and server usage. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed load-balancing method, extensive simulations are conducted in an Edge-Cloud network environment. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly reduces processing time compared to traditional static load-balancing methods. The Q-learning algorithm enables the load-balancing system to dynamically learn the optimal decision-making strategy to allocate tasks to the most appropriate server. Overall, the proposed Q-learning-based load-balancing method provides a dynamic and efficient solution to balance the workload between edge servers and cloud servers. The proposed method effectively achieves real-time task processing in edge computing environments and can contribute to the development of high-performance edge computing systems.