Integrating Terrestrial and Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTNs) within Beyond-5G (B5G) and future 6G ecosystems represents a transformative advancement in achieving ubiquitous, resilient, and scalable communication services. NTNs, including Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and High Altitude Platform Systems (HAPS), extend traditional terrestrial networks by providing continuous connectivity in remote, underserved, and connection-critical scenarios such as disaster-hit regions and rural areas. This thesis deals with an end-to-end cloud-native framework that leverages cutting-edge technologies, including Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC), Software Defined Networking (SDN), Network Function Virtualization (NFV), blockchain, and advanced AI/ML models, to enhance service availability, security, and Quality of Service (QoS) in 3D NTN environments. The research first explores the deployment of disaggregated Next-Generation Radio Access Networks (NGRANs) across terrestrial and non-terrestrial domains using a Kubernetes-based architecture. A Graph Neural Network (GNN) model is developed to monitor and manage these networks, detecting link failures and optimizing traffic routing paths between terrestrial and satellite components. The GNN model achieves an 85% accuracy in link failure detection and significantly reduces end-to-end delays in NTN deployments, highlighting the potential of AI-driven network management in enhancing overall network resilience. To address the challenge of dynamic resource management in NTNs, this thesis investigates the implementation of functional splits, such as F1 and E1 interfaces, between terrestrial control units (gNB-CU) and satellite-based distributed units (gNB-DU). The study employs Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) neural networks to predict resource utilization, specifically CPU, memory, and bandwidth of satellite payloads. These predictive models enable proactive monitoring and resource allocation decisions, ensuring efficient use of limited computational resources and maintaining high levels of network performance. Security remains a critical concern in NTNs due to decentralized and open 5G satellite communications. A blockchain-based authentication framework is proposed to mitigate these risks, enhancing the security of data exchanges and remote firmware updates in LEO satellite constellations. Blockchain technology provides a decentralized, transparent, and immutable security framework, improving authentication efficiency and protecting against unauthorized access, though with trade-offs in network performance, such as increased latency and reduced throughput. This approach makes the hybrid B5G NTN network secure, reinforcing the integrity and confidentiality of communication channels, which is essential for emerging services and applications. Furthermore, this thesis comprehensively evaluates MEC-based experimental testbeds that demonstrate service resiliency in NTNs during terrestrial network outages. The MEC deployments allow seamless transitions to satellite access networks, ensuring service continuity and improving QoS. These testbeds showcase the capability of cloud native technologies in maintaining service availability, highlighting their critical role in resilient NTN networks. The findings of this thesis demonstrate that integrating cloud-native architectures, blockchain-based security mechanisms, and advanced AI/ML models significantly enhances the resilience, security, and resource efficiency of NTNs. These innovations pave the way for robust, adaptive, and secure communication systems, supporting the seamless deployment of critical B5G and 6G applications across diverse and challenging environments. This research provides valuable insights into designing and implementing resilient NTNs, setting the foundation for future advancements in global connectivity and intelligent network management.

Trust in information systems stem from two key properties of responses to queries regarding the state of the system, viz., i) authoritativeness, and ii) unbiasedness. That the response is authoritative implies that i) the provider (source) of the response, and ii) the chain of delegations through which the provider obtained the authority to respond, can be verified. The property of unbiasedness implies that no system data relevant to the query is deliberately or accidentally suppressed. The need for guaranteeing these two important properties stem from the impracticality for the verifier to exhaustively verify the correctness of every system process, and the integrity of the platform on which system processes are executed. For instance, the integrity of a process may be jeopardized by i) bugs (attacks) in computing hardware like Random Access Memory (RAM), input/output channels (I/O), and Central Processing Unit( CPU), ii) exploitable defects in an operating system, iii) logical bugs in program implementation, and iv) a wide range of other embedded malfunctions, among others. A first step in ensuing AU properties of geographic queries is the need to ensure AU responses to a specific type of geographic query, viz., point-location. The focus of this dissertation is on strategies to leverage assured point-location, for i) ensuring authoritativeness and unbiasedness (AU) of responses to a wide range of geographic queries; and ii) useful applications like Secure Queryable Dynamic Maps (SQDM) and trustworthy redistricting protocol. The specific strategies used for guaranteeing AU properties of geographic services include i) use of novel Merkle-hash tree- based data structures, and ii) blockchain networks to guarantee the integrity of the processes.

[pt] Minerar bitcoins é uma atividade incerta, e para realizá-la, os participantes competem em um processo chamado Proof-Of-Work. Cada participante pode passar meses ou até anos sem fluxos positivos de caixa, enquanto os custos se mantém. Isto pode afastá-los da tecnologia e a saída de membros afeta a própria rede, que não sobrevive sem a presença de mineradores. Este trabalho propõe estudar o compartilhamento de recompensas em estruturas já existentes na rede: mineradores se juntando em pools de mineração e dividindo receitas e custos, assim diminuindo a variabilidade e gerando fluxos positivos de caixa mais constantes. A receita e custos são modelados, e um modelo de programação estocástica é proposto para encontrar as alocações ótimas que garantem a permanência dos membros no pool. Este grupo de é caracterizado por uma coalizão, estudado através de Teoria dos Jogos. O comportamento dos jogadores também é de estudo neste trabalho, e uma medida monetária de risco, na forma de CVaR (Conditional Value at Risk) é usada para representar o perfil de risco do minerador e as consequências para as alocações ótimas. Embora não haja benefício estrito em fazer parte do pool para um único período de análise, há ganho financeiro quando se analisa em múltiplos períodos, e o tempo médio para se acertar um hash diminui quando os participantes se juntam em um pool. Um ganho na probabilidade de mineração ao fazer parte de um pool aumentaria a receita média da coalizão, trazendo ganhos financeiros mesmo em um único período de análise. Divisões intuitivas de recursos, como por poder computacional ou igualitária podem não garantir estabilidade do pool, principalmente considerando períodos longos de tempo. Tal estabilidade é possível em um futuro sem receitas fixas de mineração, se ocorrerem também mudanças nas receitas variáveis e custos. Três funções objetivo diferentes representando três idéias de partilha de recompensa são comparadas e uma metodologia é proposta para uso conjunto de pelo menos duas destas, com objetivo de aumentar a justiça na divisão das recompensas. / [en] Mining Bitcoins is an uncertain activity, and to perform it, players must compete in a process known as Proof-Of-Work. A miner may spend months or even years without positive cash flows on this process, while still incurring in the associated costs. This outcome has the possibility to drive them away from the technology, and the departure of members affects the network itself, as it cannot survive without the presence of miners. This work proposes to study the sharing of rewards in structures already presented in the network: miners joining forces and taking place in mining pools, sharing revenues and costs, thus having positive cash flows more often, reducing variability in gains. The revenues and costs are modeled, and a stochastic optimization model is proposed to find the optimal allocations that guarantee that all members stay within the pool. This group of miners is characterized by a coalition, studied through Game Theory. The behavior of the players is also subject of this study, and a monetary risk measure, by the form of CVaR (Conditional Value at Risk) is used to represent the miner s risk profile and consequences to the optimal allocations. While there is no strict benefit from being part of a pool for a single block, there is financial gain when looking at multi-period, and the average time to correctly guess a hash decreases when players join forces in a pool. A gain in mining probability by being in the pool would raise the average reward of the coalition and allow for financial benefit even in single period.We observe that intuitive sharing allocations such as through computational power and equally dividing rewards may not guarantee the stability of the pool, mainly when longer periods of time are considered. Said stability is possible in the future without fixed incomes, but with changes to the variable rewards and the costs of mining. Lastly, three different objective functions representing three ideas to share the rewards within the nucleolus are compared and a method is proposed to collectively use at least two of them, aiming increased fairness in the sharing of rewards.