Managing byzantine robots via blockchain technology in a swarm robotics collective decision making scenario: Robotics track

Abstract

While swarm robotics systems are often claimed to be highly fault- tolerant, so far research has limited its attention to safe laborat ory settings and has virtually ignored security issues in the prese nce 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 coord ination 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 prese nce 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.