Fabchain: Managing Audit-able 3D Print Job over Blockchain

TL;DR

Fabchain is a blockchain-based system that securely records 3D printing histories, ensuring immutability and accountability, and demonstrating practical performance on Ethereum for managing print jobs within a minute.

Contribution

This paper introduces Fabchain, a novel blockchain scheme for recording and managing 3D print jobs with an emphasis on auditability and durability, implemented on Ethereum.

Findings

Fabchain can complete a print job sequence in less than 1 minute on Ethereum.

The system maintains an immutable history of fabrication processes.

Fabchain effectively balances performance with security requirements.

Abstract

Improvements in fabrication devices such as 3D printers are becoming possible for personal fabrication to freely fabricate any products. To clarify who is liable for the product, the fabricator should keep the fabrication history in an immutable and sustainably accessible manner. In this paper, we propose a new scheme, "Fabchain," that can record the fabrication history in such a manner. By utilizing a scheme that employs a blockchain as an audit-able communication channel, Fabchain manages print jobs for the fabricator's 3D printer over the blockchain, while maintaining a history of a print job. We implemented Fabchain on Ethereum and evaluated the performance for recording a print job. Our results demonstrate that Fabchain can complete communication of a print job sequence in less than 1 minute on the Ethereum test network. We conclude that Fabchain can manage a print job in a reasonable duration for 3D printing, while satisfying the requirements for immutability and sustainability.