Assessing Blockchain Consensus in Robotics: A Visual Homing Approach

Abstract

Blockchain technology has evolved drastically in recent years, with a wide range of applications in various industries, including robotics. This paper investigates how blockchain technology enhances visual homing in robotics, addressing challenges in navigation without relying on GPS or maps. By simplifying complexities and potential access issues, blockchain establishes an unchangeable data repository for critical information like landmarks and robot perspectives, enabling efficient data retrieval. The study explores blockchain integration into visual homing robotics, emphasizing two consensus algorithms- Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS). The evaluation covers suitability, throughput, and latency, unveiling distinct strengths and limitations. PoW ensures high security and decentralization but requires substantial resources and faces scalability hurdles, while PoS offers energy efficiency with decentralization compromises. We utilize Gazebo to simulate the environment and a visual homing based Wide Area Visual Navigation (WAVN) algorithm implemented in ROS, effectively managing the navigation of multiple robots.