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Event-driven Fabric Blockchain -- ROS 2 Interface: Towards Secure and Auditable Teleoperation of Mobile Robots

Lei Fu, Salma Salimi, Jorge Peña Queralta, Tomi Westerlund

TL;DR

This work addresses the challenge of secure and auditable real-time teleoperation for mobile robots by delivering an event-driven bridge between ROS 2 and a Hyperledger Fabric blockchain. The authors redesign previous Fabric-ROS integrations into a modular, event-driven architecture using NodeJS that supports two-way data transmission with configurable settings. Through simulations and real-world MAV experiments, they demonstrate sub-second two-way latency under substantial network load and improved scalability compared to polling approaches, while highlighting trade-offs related to blockchain confirmation times. The approach offers auditability, access control, and cross-organizational data transport, signaling practical potential for secure, distributed robotic operations beyond isolated ROS domains.

Abstract

The integration of blockchain technology in robotic systems has been met by the community with a combination of hype and skepticism. The current literature shows that there is indeed potential for more secure and trustable distributed robotic systems. However, it is still unclear in what aspects of robotics beyond high-level decision making can blockchain technology be indeed usable. This paper explores the limits of a permissioned blockchain framework, Hyperledger Fabric, for teleoperation. Remote operation of mobile robots can benefit from the auditability and security properties of a blockchain. We study the potential benefits and the main limitations of such an approach. We introduce a new design and implementation for a event-driven Fabric-ROS 2 bridge that is able to maintain lower latencies at higher network loads than previous solutions. We also show this opens the door to more realistic use cases and applications. Our experiments with small aerial robots show latencies in the hundreds of milliseconds and simultaneous control of both a single and multi-robot system. We analyze the main trade-offs and limitations for real-world near real-time remote teleoperation.

Event-driven Fabric Blockchain -- ROS 2 Interface: Towards Secure and Auditable Teleoperation of Mobile Robots

TL;DR

This work addresses the challenge of secure and auditable real-time teleoperation for mobile robots by delivering an event-driven bridge between ROS 2 and a Hyperledger Fabric blockchain. The authors redesign previous Fabric-ROS integrations into a modular, event-driven architecture using NodeJS that supports two-way data transmission with configurable settings. Through simulations and real-world MAV experiments, they demonstrate sub-second two-way latency under substantial network load and improved scalability compared to polling approaches, while highlighting trade-offs related to blockchain confirmation times. The approach offers auditability, access control, and cross-organizational data transport, signaling practical potential for secure, distributed robotic operations beyond isolated ROS domains.

Abstract

The integration of blockchain technology in robotic systems has been met by the community with a combination of hype and skepticism. The current literature shows that there is indeed potential for more secure and trustable distributed robotic systems. However, it is still unclear in what aspects of robotics beyond high-level decision making can blockchain technology be indeed usable. This paper explores the limits of a permissioned blockchain framework, Hyperledger Fabric, for teleoperation. Remote operation of mobile robots can benefit from the auditability and security properties of a blockchain. We study the potential benefits and the main limitations of such an approach. We introduce a new design and implementation for a event-driven Fabric-ROS 2 bridge that is able to maintain lower latencies at higher network loads than previous solutions. We also show this opens the door to more realistic use cases and applications. Our experiments with small aerial robots show latencies in the hundreds of milliseconds and simultaneous control of both a single and multi-robot system. We analyze the main trade-offs and limitations for real-world near real-time remote teleoperation.
Paper Structure (23 sections, 9 figures, 1 table, 2 algorithms)

This paper contains 23 sections, 9 figures, 1 table, 2 algorithms.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Background
  3. Blockchain in Robotics
  4. Hyperledger Fabric
  5. System Architecture
  6. Fabric Network Configuration
  7. Architecture Overview
  8. Methodology
  9. Fabric and ROS 2 Integration
  10. Fabric Smart Contracts
  11. ROS Client Applications
  12. Experimental settings
  13. Hardware
  14. Simulation environment
  15. Software
  16. ...and 8 more sections

Figures (9)

  • Figure 1: Conceptual illustration of the proposed approach, where a Hyperledger Fabric blockchain network bridges robots with a remote teleoperation application. The Fabric network is able to transport data with low latencies in the range of hundreds of milliseconds. Real-time data streams (e.g., live video) can be confirmed through hashes in the blockchain. The Fabric network allows for control access management and auditability.
  • Figure 2: System architecture overview with and illustration of the ROS 2 and Fabric blockchain interfaces.
  • Figure 3: Overview of data transport latencies in a simplified use case. Messages are stacked for illustrative purposes when they overlap in time.
  • Figure 4: Overview of the implementation.
  • Figure 5: Tello drones in the Optitrack motion capture system.
  • ...and 4 more figures