Saiprasanth Krishnamoorthy, Albert P. Go, Ashlee Tiwari, Vikram Kapila
This paper develops a distributed technique to populate the network graph of a decentralized multi-robot system (MRS) by employing a consensus protocol for extracting the identities and states of each robot's neighbors in the MRS. A dark-room exchange (DRE) technique is proposed wherein each robot uses its on-board 2D LiDAR for range sensing and peer-to-peer communication to identify and track neighboring objects. The resulting information is utilized to build and maintain a distributed ledger populated with the information of the MRS network graph structure to facilitate supervision by human operators. The system is tested in a simulated environment consisting of TurtleBot3 robots scattered in a 2D plane. Using the results of simulation, an analysis of the speed and performance of the DRE technique is conducted that illustrates high reliability and fast response times. The paper concludes with a discussion of the future scope of this research for multi-robot/swarm applications.
Abstract The paper considers the problem of distributed decision making in the robot swarm. The enhancement technique of the related study approach is proposed using the data transmission distance constraints and the weighted voting strategy. The decision making process is organized by means of distributed ledger usage. The information propagation through the swarm is implemented via spreading randomized rumor. The avoidance of routing in the swarm improves the overall energy efficiency of the system. The weighted voting transactions take into account the positions of the robots relating to the unknown objects or obstacles, as well as the voting history, which is stored in a distributed ledger
This paper presents a new consensus protocol based on verifiable delay function. First, we introduce the concept of verifiable delay puzzle (VDP), which resembles the hashing puzzle used in the PoW mechanism but can only be solved sequentially. We then present a VDP implementation based on the continuous verifiable delay function. Further, we show that VDP can be combined with the Nakamoto consensus in a proof-of-stake/proof-of-delay hybrid protocol. We analyze the persistence and liveness of the protocol, and show that compared to PoW, our proposal consumes much less energy; compared to BFT leader-election based consensus algorithms, our proposal achieves better resistance to long-range attacks and DoS attacks targeting the block proposers.
This chapter explains the opportunity to present some of the platforms that have earned a reputation from both industry and academia. It discusses some emerging blockchains that have the potential to disrupt the industry in the future. Existing public ledgers such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are not fast enough to provide adequate support to applications that require a response in the fraction of a second. IOTA is a distributed ledger designed for the Internet of Things (IoT). It provides secure communications and payments between IoT devices and will soon have a smart contract service called Qubic. Hyperledger is a collaborative attempt between IBM and Linux Foundation to build an enterprise-grade, open-source distributed ledger framework. The Indy platform supports independent identities on distributed ledgers and provides the necessary tools, libraries and reusable components for implementing digital identities rooted on blockchains or other distributed ledgers.
The rise of blockchain technology has paved the way for an increasing number of blockchain systems, each having different characteristics. The need for distributed applications that span across multiple blockchain systems is increasing. However, it is currently not possible to write a single-description smart contract which can be compiled to span across multiple blockchain systems. In this paper we present PORTHOS, a macroprogramming framework and domain specific language for writing commitment-based smart contracts that span multiple blockchain systems. The language allows programmers to write smart contracts at a higher level of abstraction by composing together contract blocks, without the need to specify how logic should be split across different blockchain instances. A runtime framework, including both on-chain and off-chain functionality, harmonises the features of different blockchain systems as well as enables communication across the smart contracts. A proof of concept, built on the Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric blockchain systems and extendible to other systems, illustrates the technique and framework. We also show how the PORTHOS language is expressive enough to define a variety of applications.
Carles Araguz, Marc Closa, Elisenda Bou‐Balust, Eduard Alarcón
The design of autonomous operational schemes for distributed, decentralized systems is expected to bring multiple qualities to systems of this kind. One of their instances are Earth-observing swarms of nano-satellites, in which their collective function targets global performance figures. The design of autonomous operations can be modelled as a collective scheduling problem subject to resource constraints. There are many system-wide qualities of interest, such as resiliency, adaptability, responsiveness, among others, that need specific frameworks to characterize the proposed solutions. This paper presents one such design-oriented tool that can evaluate these autonomous organization schemes-potentially for large-scale and highly heterogeneous scenarios with dynamic contexts and multiple time-scales-and illustrates its usage in the evaluation of an autonomous nano-satellite swarm that collectively optimizes revisit times.
Sara Falcone, Yingsheng Zhang, Agnes Cameron, Amira Abdel-Rahman
This paper proposes a blockchain-based mapping protocol for distributed robotic systems running on embedded hardware. This protocol was developed for a robotic system designed to locomote on lattice structures for space applications. A consensus mechanism, Proof of Validity, is introduced to allow the effort of mining blocks to correlate with the desired tasks the robotic system was designed for. These robots communicate using peer-to-peer LoRa radio. Options, trade-offs and considerations for implementing blockchain technology on an embedded system with wireless radio communication are explored and discussed.
Jason A. Tran, Gowri Ramachandran, Palash M Shah, Claudiu Danilov · 6 authors
Blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt applications beyond cryptocurrencies. This work applies the concepts of blockchain technology to swarm robotics applications. Swarm robots typically operate in a distributed fashion, wherein the collaboration and coordination between the robots are essential to accomplishing the application goals. However, robot swarms may experience network partitions either due to navigational and communication challenges or in order to perform certain tasks efficiently. We propose a novel protocol, SwarmDAG, that enables the maintenance of a distributed ledger based on the concept of extended virtual synchrony while managing and tolerating network partitions.
The blockchain is a secure and trustworthy distributed transaction management system that is being extensively researched and developed for various applications and use cases. This study introduces a novel distributed control system using the Blockchain. A multi-robot path planning application is developed and deployed to benchmark a blockchain platform, the Hyperledger Fabric. Blockchain technology has the reputation of being sufficiently dilatory that it is inappropriate for time-sensitive applications. This research demonstrates how the enterprise-grade blockchain solutions overcome this shortcoming and investigates their potential for enabling secure and trusted distributed control systems for IoT.
Vicent Cholvi, Antonio Fernández Anta, Chryssis Georgiou, Nicolas Nicolaou
This work provides a proper formalization for Distributed Ledger Objects (as first defined in [Antonio Fernández Anta et al., 2018]), when processes may be Byzantine. The formal definitions are accompanied by algorithms to implement Byzantine Distributed Ledgers by utilizing a Byzantine Atomic Broadcast service.
Volker Strobel, Eduardo Castelló Ferrer, Marco Dorigo
While swarm robotics systems are often claimed to be highly fault-tolerant, so far research has limited its attention to safe laboratory settings and has virtually ignored security issues in the presence of Byzantine robots---i.e., robots with arbitrarily faulty or malicious behavior. However, in many applications one or more Byzantine robots may suffice to let current swarm coordination mechanisms fail with unpredictable or disastrous outcomes. In this paper, we provide a proof-of-concept for managing security issues in swarm robotics systems via blockchain technology. Our approach uses decentralized programs executed via blockchain technology (blockchain-based smart contracts) to establish secure swarm coordination mechanisms and to identify and exclude Byzantine swarm members. We studied the performance of our blockchain-based approach in a collective decision-making scenario both in the presence and absence of Byzantine robots and compared our results to those obtained with an existing collective decision approach. The results show a clear advantage of the blockchain approach when Byzantine robots are part of the swarm.
Jul 1, 2018·2018 IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things (iThings) and IEEE Green Computing and Communications (GreenCom) and IEEE Cyber, Physical and Social Computing (CPSCom) and IEEE Smart Data (SmartData)
Blockchain technology has brought a huge paradigm shift in multiple industries, by integrating distributed ledger, smart contracts and consensus protocol under the same roof. Notable applications of blockchain include cryptocurrencies and large-scale multi-party transaction management systems. The latter fits very well into the domain of manufacturing and supply chain management for Integrated Circuits (IC), which, despite several advanced technologies, is vulnerable to malicious practices, such as overproduction, IP piracy and deleterious design modification to gain unfair advantages. To combat these threats, researchers have proposed several ideas like hardware metering, design obfuscation, split manufacturing and watermarking. In this paper, we show, how these issues can be complementarily dealt with using blockchain technology coupled with identity-based encryption and physical unclonable functions, for improved resilience against certain adversarial motives. As part of our proposed blockchain protocol, titled `BLIC', we propose an authentication mechanism to secure both active and passive IC transactions, and a composite consensus protocol designed for IC supply chains. We also present studies on the security, scalability, privacy and anonymity of the BLIC protocol.
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
This paper presents an innovative solution to manage security and trustiness in Osmotic Computing. Osmotic Computing dynamically manages Cloud, Edge and IoT resources across federated environments set up by different and cooperating stakeholders. In this context, the Software Defined Membrane (SDMem) is the main component responsible to orchestrate the osmotic transfer of microelements (MELs) across different environments straightening the security needs of such a complex ecosystem. The basic idea presented in this paper is to leverage Private Blockchain technologies in SDMem implementation over federated systems. Data access activities will be logged in a private distributed Blockchain-based ledger. This will allow to have a certified, non-repudiable record of all the data accessed performed by distributed computing, thus assuring the overall ownership and integrity of data and processes running in MELs. The resulting SDMem solution allow us to isolate data and workflows in distributed environments where heterogeneous resources and devices are exploited.
In this vision paper, we present an approach that makes it possible to protect developed ideas and early concepts even during their systematical development. We take the Design Thinking process as an example, in which interfaces are used for individual stages (understand, observe, define, ideate, prototype, test) to digitally record verbal, written or sketched, and even modeled or constructed outcome. This outcome is recorded and linked to the originating person. To guarantee both proof-of-existence and proof-of-origin, a unique hash is generated from each digital artifact stored and embedded into the Bitcoin Blockchain by the OriginStamp decentralized trusted timestamping service. Once this unique fingerprint is embedded in a transaction in the underlying Blockchain network, it can be proven where particular contributions originated due to the characteristics of Blockchain architecture. By setting up a decentralized tamper-proof means of record keeping, the entire innovation chain from the first ideation to the beginning of production is verifiably stored. By providing a clear proof-of-origin, all innovators (even competitors) could continue to work on existing problem-solving process and add their contribution proportionately, depending on the state of innovation development. This concept enables an Open Innovation ecosystem, which has the potential to increase the innovation potential of companies immensely. Additionally, inventions that are not patentable because they do not comply with the strict regulations of patent law can still be published and protected because the information about the origin of the respective contribution is guaranteed.
Open access
Computability, Logic, AI Algorithms
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
The HPlane IoT framework abstracts security and privacy concerns of critical IoT infrastructure in a Remote Healthcare Monitoring (RHM) environment. Despite its usefulness, the framework lacks a scalable access control mechanism leading to performance and scalability challenges. Some of these challenges can be overcome by using Byzcoin blockchain that provides strong consistency guarantee. However, we found limitations in Byzcoin with respect to reliability, performance and high failure probability due to the use of unreliable Collective Cosigning (CoSi) protocol. Our practical analysis shows that on an average 10-30% CoSi protocols fail when it uses a spanning tree topology to scale Schnorr multisignature. Thus use of Byzcoin poses a significant risk to critical IoT infrastructure. In this paper, we present a robust spanning tree topology along with an implementation of BLS multisignature. Our enhanced topology successfully tackles reliability limitation while BLS multisignature improves performance and lowers failure probability. This work also summarizes how blockchains can serve as a controller application to provide an effective scalable access control in HPlane IoT framework.
Ladan Rabieekenari, Kamran Sayrafian, John S. Baras
Public safety organizations increasingly rely on wireless technology for their mission critical communication during disaster response operations. In such situations, a communication network could face much higher traffic demands compared to its normal operation. Given the limited capacity of base stations in the network, such peak traffic scenarios could lead to high blocking probability or equivalently service interruptions during critical communications. At the same time, networking infrastructure can breakdown during a disaster. Proper deployment of mobile cells - Cells on Wheels - can help to enhance the network coverage or accommodate excess traffic in areas with high concentration of users. In addition, an intelligent relocation strategy can be used to efficiently adapt the cell locations to match variations in the spatial distribution of the traffic. In practical scenarios, these mobile base stations may not be able to relocate to all positions within the target field. Such prohibited areas introduce additional constraints on designing an intelligent relocation strategy. In this paper, we propose a decentralized relocation algorithm that enables mobile cells to adapt their positions in response to potentially changing traffic patterns in a field with prohibited areas. Extensive simulations show considerable improvement in supporting spatially variable traffic throughout the target field.