Cybersecure Trusted Data Flow in Additive Manufacturing Through Blockchain-Based Provenance and Decentralized Storage

Owing to the dispersed and data-driven nature of additive manufacturing (AM), various new cybersecurity-related threats have emerged regarding digital file transfer, data trustworthiness, intellectual property (IP) protection, and traceability. The issues mentioned above can be resolved by utilizing GIT, Neo4j, IPFS, and Ethereum-based blockchain technology (BT). Here, version control can be managed with GIT, product lifecycle management with Neo4j, and data storage across decentralized locations with IPFS. The proposed interconnected architecture determines a digital thread by utilizing BT for immutable registration and transaction provenance for the IPFS file reference, authorization rules, and permitted manufacturing resources, while SHA-256 hashing is applied for file integrity. In addition, in this framework, a print gateway has been executed at the device level to verify the file credentials before execution. To test the proposed framework experimentally, a drone arm was printed. The results demonstrated effective implementation of the smart contract, safe file transmission, integrity verification, approved printer validation, and traceable manufacturing implementation. In the reported single proof-of-concept run, the recurring operational workflow comprising sender processing, receiver-side retrieval and integrity verification, and print-gateway authorization and dispatch required 8.4 s. Including the one-time 7.28 s smart contract deployment, the aggregate processing time for the initial execution was 15.68 s. The framework was also able to detect file tampering and unauthorized printer access activities. The proposed GIT-Neo4j-IPFS-Blockchain-based framework provides the feasibility of an integrated approach for improving cybersecurity, traceability, and trust in distributed AM workflows.