Blockchain and NFT-based traceability and certification for UAV parts in manufacturing

In recent years, the widespread adoption of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has increased significantly, sparking the need for reliable mechanisms to verify the authenticity, origin, and history of their constituent components. However, the lack of secure and trusted evidence for traceability, attestation, and certification of these components poses alarming challenges in ensuring transparency, data integrity, and authenticity. In this paper, we propose a blockchain and Non-Fungible Token (NFT)-based solution that manages, certifies, and traces the origin, history, and ownership of UAVs and their manufacturing components. The solution ensures decentralization, transparency, audibility, and trustworthiness. We utilize composable NFTs, which capture and store UAV data in a hierarchical way, wherein parent NFTs represent the assembled UAV data, and child NFTs represent individual UAV parts. This approach enables system-wide traceability and facilitates smooth ownership exchanges. We further incorporate Digital Twin (DT) details into the NFT metadata to enhance the representation accuracy of the actual physical asset. In this paper, we present a detailed system architectural design of our solution, along with implementation, testing, and validation of relevant algorithms and smart contracts (SCs). We conduct cost evaluation and security analysis, and we also compare our solution with existing popular solutions in the literature review. The developed smart contracts code has been made publicly available on GitHub.