Secure and secret cooperation in robotic swarms
Name
Secure and secret cooperation in robotic swarms.pdf
Description
Main article
Size
20.69 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
08f4571dff70e0de150a54613258555d
Author(s)
Castelló Ferrer, Eduardo
Hardjono, Thomas
Pentland, Alex 'Sandy'
Dorigo, Marco
Date Issued
June 7, 2021
Abstract
The importance of swarm robotics systems in both academic research and real-world applications is steadily increasing. However, to reach widespread adoption, new models that ensure the secure cooperation of large groups of robots need to be developed. This work introduces a novel method to encapsulate cooperative robotic missions in an authenticated data structure known as Merkle tree. With this method, operators can provide the "blueprint" of the swarm's mission without disclosing its raw data. In other words, data verification can be separated from data itself. We propose a system where robots in a swarm, to cooperate towards mission completion, have to "prove" their integrity to their peers by exchanging cryptographic proofs. We show the implications of this approach for two different swarm robotics missions: foraging and maze formation. In both missions, swarm robots were able to cooperate and carry out sequential operations without having explicit knowledge about the mission's high-level objectives. The results presented in this work demonstrate the feasibility of using Merkle trees as a cooperation mechanism for swarm robotics systems in both simulation and real-robot experiments, which has implications for future decentralized robotics applications where security plays a crucial role such as environmental monitoring, infrastructure surveillance, and disaster management.
Subjects
Robotics
Cryptography and Security
Data Structures and Algorithms
Emerging Technologies
Multiagent Systems
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
Terms of Use
Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States
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