research-article

Managing Byzantine Robots via Blockchain Technology in a Swarm Robotics Collective Decision Making Scenario

Authors:

Volker Strobel,

Eduardo Castelló Ferrer,

Marco DorigoAuthors Info & Claims

AAMAS '18: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems

Pages 541 - 549

Published: 09 July 2018 Publication History

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Abstract

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.

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Cited By

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Antonic NZakir RDorigo MReina ADastani MSichman JAlechina NDignum V(2024)Collective Robustness of Heterogeneous Decision-Makers Against Stubborn IndividualsProceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems10.5555/3635637.3662853(68-77)Online publication date: 6-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3635637.3662853
Lima Baima RChovet LSedlmeir JOlivares-Mendez MFridgen GRoychoudhury APaiva AAbreu RStorey MHierons RMadeira H(2024)Designing Trustful Cooperation Ecosystems is Key to the New Space Exploration EraProceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: New Ideas and Emerging Results10.1145/3639476.3639760(87-91)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3639476.3639760
Lima Baima RChovet LHartwich EBera ASedlmeir JFridgen GOlivares-Mendez MHong JPark J(2024)Trustful Coopetitive Infrastructures for the New Space Exploration EraProceedings of the 39th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing10.1145/3605098.3635887(612-621)Online publication date: 8-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3605098.3635887
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Index Terms

Managing Byzantine Robots via Blockchain Technology in a Swarm Robotics Collective Decision Making Scenario
1. Computer systems organization
  1. Embedded and cyber-physical systems
    1. Robotics
      1. Robotic control

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

AAMAS '18: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems

July 2018

2312 pages

General Chairs:
Elisabeth Andre
Augsburg University, Germany
,
Sven Koenig
University of Southern California, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Mehdi Dastani
Utrecht University, Netherlands
,
Gita Sukthankar
University of Central Florida, USA

In-Cooperation

ACM: Association for Computing Machinery

Publisher

International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems

Richland, SC

Publication History

Published: 09 July 2018

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Author Tags

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Research-article

Funding Sources

Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions
FLAG-ERA
F.R.S.-FNRS

Conference

AAMAS '18

Sponsor:

SIGAI

AAMAS '18: Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems

July 10 - 15, 2018

Stockholm, Sweden

Acceptance Rates

AAMAS '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 149 of 607 submissions, 25%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,155 of 5,036 submissions, 23%

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Citations

Cited By

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Antonic NZakir RDorigo MReina ADastani MSichman JAlechina NDignum V(2024)Collective Robustness of Heterogeneous Decision-Makers Against Stubborn IndividualsProceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems10.5555/3635637.3662853(68-77)Online publication date: 6-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3635637.3662853
Lima Baima RChovet LSedlmeir JOlivares-Mendez MFridgen GRoychoudhury APaiva AAbreu RStorey MHierons RMadeira H(2024)Designing Trustful Cooperation Ecosystems is Key to the New Space Exploration EraProceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: New Ideas and Emerging Results10.1145/3639476.3639760(87-91)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3639476.3639760
Lima Baima RChovet LHartwich EBera ASedlmeir JFridgen GOlivares-Mendez MHong JPark J(2024)Trustful Coopetitive Infrastructures for the New Space Exploration EraProceedings of the 39th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing10.1145/3605098.3635887(612-621)Online publication date: 8-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3605098.3635887
Wardega Kvon Hippel MTron RNita-Rotaru CLi WAgmon NAn BRicci AYeoh W(2023)Byzantine Resilience at Swarm Scale: A Decentralized Blocklist Protocol from Inter-robot AccusationsProceedings of the 2023 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems10.5555/3545946.3598795(1430-1438)Online publication date: 30-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3545946.3598795
Rahouti MLyons DJagatheesaperumal SXiong K(2023)A Decentralized Cooperative Navigation Approach for Visual Homing NetworksIT Professional10.1109/MITP.2023.332386525:6(71-81)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2023
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Deng GZhou YXu YZhang TLiu YBilge LDumitras T(2021)An Investigation of Byzantine Threats in Multi-Robot SystemsProceedings of the 24th International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses10.1145/3471621.3471867(17-32)Online publication date: 6-Oct-2021
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Alsamhi SLee BGuizani MKumar NQiao YLiu X(2021)Blockchain for decentralized multi‐drone to combat COVID‐19 and future pandemicsTransactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies10.1002/ett.425532:9Online publication date: 8-Sep-2021
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Hibti MBaïna KBenatallah BLazaar MDuvallet CAl Achhab MMahboub OSilkan H(2019)Towards Swarm Intelligence Architectural PatternsProceedings of the 4th International Conference on Big Data and Internet of Things10.1145/3372938.3372962(1-8)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2019
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