Hybrid distributed ledger architecture for secure and auditable industrial systems based on automated guided vehicles

Abstract

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) operating in industrial and critical environments require secure, auditable, and efficient data management. This paper proposes a hybrid architecture that combines ROS/ROS2 robotic middleware, an industrial context platform, and a distributed ledger layer to provide tamper-evident event recording while preserving operational flexibility. A bridging component maps robot states and events into NGSI context entities, which can then be anchored in Hedera Hashgraph or IOTA Shimmer, while a conventional FIWARE/MongoDB deployment is used as an off-chain reference baseline. The proposed architecture is evaluated experimentally using a Raspberry Pi as an AGV emulator under controlled laboratory conditions. Results show that Hedera Hashgraph achieves lower ledger confirmation latency than IOTA Shimmer, with mean DLT-only confirmation times of 4.02 s and 5.01 s, respectively, while the FIWARE/MongoDB baseline provides substantially lower latency (1.52 s) but without immutable auditability. Energy measurements indicate that IOTA exhibits low local device-side energy consumption, though they do not capture the full energy cost of the distributed ledger network. Overall, the study highlights trade-offs among latency, throughput, energy consumption, and auditability in hybrid on-chain/off-chain architectures for industrial AGV systems and provides guidance on ledger selection and deployment design for security-critical industrial applications. Keywords: AGV, DLT, Hashgraph, IOTA, FIWARE, FIROS, IoT, Industrial Robotics, Auditability, Industry, ROS, Industrial Platform