IEEE Transactions on Robotics.<\/em><\/p>\nThe research could also have applications in cities where multirobot systems of self-driving cars are delivering goods and transporting people across town.<\/p>\n
A blockchain provides a tamper-proof record of all transactions \u2014 in this case, the messages issued by robot team leaders \u2014 so follower robots can ultimately detect discrepancies in the information trail.<\/p>\n
Leader robots apply tokens to signal movements and add transactions to the chain, and then forfeit their tokens when they are \u2018caught\u2019 in a lie. Therefore, this transaction-based communications system confines the number of lies a hacked robot is capable of spreading, according to Eduardo Castell\u00f3, a Marie Curie Fellow in the MIT Media Lab and lead author of the paper.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world of blockchain beyond the discourse about cryptocurrency has many things under the hood that can create new ways of understanding security protocols,\u201d Castell\u00f3 explained.<\/p>\n
Blocks containing directions<\/h3>\n In this simulation-based study, the information stored in each block is a set of directions from a leader robot to followers. If a malevolent robot tries to modify the content of a block, it will change the block hash; thus, the changed block will no longer be connected to the chain.<\/p>\n
As well as this, the blockchain offers a permanent record of all transactions. As all followers can ultimately see all the directions issued by leader robots, they can see if they have been misled.<\/p>\n
For example, if five leaders send messages telling followers to move north, and one leader sends a message telling followers to move west, the followers could disregard the contradictory direction. Even if a follower robot did move west by mistake, the misled robot would eventually recognise the error when it contrasts its moves to the transactions stored in the blockchain.<\/p>\n
Transaction-based communication<\/h3>\n In the approach the researchers constructed, every leader obtains a fixed number of tokens that are applied to add transactions to the chain \u2014 one token is necessary to add a transaction. If followers verify the information in a block is incorrect, by examining what the majority of leader robots signalled at that particular step, the leader loses the token. Once a robot is out of tokens, it can no longer send messages.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe envisioned a system in which lying costs money. When the malicious robots run out of tokens, they can no longer spread lies. So, you can limit or constrain the lies that the system can expose the robots to,\u201d Castell\u00f3 explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince we know how lies can impact the system, and the maximum harm that a malicious robot can cause in the system, we can calculate the maximum bound of how misled the swarm could be. So, we could say, if you have robots with a certain amount of battery life, it doesn\u2019t really matter who hacks the system; the robots will have enough battery to reach their goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can design your system with these tradeoffs in mind and make more informed decisions about what you want to do with the system you are going to deploy,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Going forward, Castell\u00f3 plans to develop off this work to construct novel security systems for robots utilising transaction-based interactions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you turn these robot systems into public robot infrastructure, you expose them to malicious actors and failures. These techniques are useful to be able to validate, audit, and understand that the system is not going to go rogue. Even if certain members of the system are hacked, it is not going to make the infrastructure collapse,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Researchers have developed a method that utilises blockchain technology to improve the capacity for secure communication for robot teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":14932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[830],"tags":[24128,530,24208,24135],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Using blockchain technology to enhance secure communications<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n