AuthROS: A Secure and Convenient Framework for Data Sharing among Robot Operating Systems (ROS)
Shenhui Zhang, Songjing Tao, Xiulai Li, Shuang Wu, Ming Tang, Zeping Tang, Zhixuan Liang, Bernie Liu · Research Square · 2022
Abstract Robot Operating System (ROS) has brought great potential for automation in all fields involved in production activities, which greatly improves productivity and simplifies operations that belonged to humans originally. However, ROS is highly dependent on communication but lacks secure data sharing mechanisms. Therefore, when it comes to multi-robots interaction scenarios, there are severe challenges in ensuring the safe and trustworthy exchange of specified confidential data among multi-robots. The reliability of data also needs to be considered carefully. This paper proposes a solution to this problem based on blockchain technology. We present a general secure and convenient authorization framework named AuthROS for ROS nodes with absolute security and high availability based on private Ethereum network and SM algorithms. This framework is capable of meeting the requirements for immutability and security of confidential data exchange in nodes of ROS of any size. An authority granting and identity identifying mechanism is proposed and integrated into the Ethereum smart contract to execute atomically to ensure the trustworthiness exchange of data and no third-party participation. At the same time, a key exchange based on SM2 and plaintext encryption mechanism based on SM4 is proposed to ensure the data transmission security. Furthermore, a data digest uploading scheme is adopted to improve the efficiency of querying and data uploading to the Ethereum network. Based on all of mechanisms mentioned above, AuthROS can play a role in the scenario where data transmitted among robots need to be recorded and maintain immobility. Experimental results demonstrated that AuthROS is equipped with excellent security, good time performance along with Nodes Forging resistance. We believe that AuthROS is the first secure data sharing framework for Robots loaded with ROS. We open sourced AuthROS at https://github.com/RobAI-Lab/ROS-Chain.