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Cyber-Physical Steganography in Robotic Motion Control

Ching-Chun Chang, Yijie Lin, Isao Echizen

TL;DR

This study proposes a methodology to encode messages as environmental stimuli influencing the motions of the robotic agent and to decode messages from the resulting motion trajectory, based on the observation of the robot's inherent sensitivity to changes in its environment.

Abstract

Steganography, the art of information hiding, has continually evolved across visual, auditory and linguistic domains, adapting to the ceaseless interplay between steganographic concealment and steganalytic revelation. This study seeks to extend the horizons of what constitutes a viable steganographic medium by introducing a steganographic paradigm in robotic motion control. Based on the observation of the robot's inherent sensitivity to changes in its environment, we propose a methodology to encode messages as environmental stimuli influencing the motions of the robotic agent and to decode messages from the resulting motion trajectory. The constraints of maximal robot integrity and minimal motion deviation are established as fundamental principles underlying secrecy. As a proof of concept, we conduct experiments in simulated environments across various manipulation tasks, incorporating robotic embodiments equipped with generalist multimodal policies.

Cyber-Physical Steganography in Robotic Motion Control

TL;DR

This study proposes a methodology to encode messages as environmental stimuli influencing the motions of the robotic agent and to decode messages from the resulting motion trajectory, based on the observation of the robot's inherent sensitivity to changes in its environment.

Abstract

Steganography, the art of information hiding, has continually evolved across visual, auditory and linguistic domains, adapting to the ceaseless interplay between steganographic concealment and steganalytic revelation. This study seeks to extend the horizons of what constitutes a viable steganographic medium by introducing a steganographic paradigm in robotic motion control. Based on the observation of the robot's inherent sensitivity to changes in its environment, we propose a methodology to encode messages as environmental stimuli influencing the motions of the robotic agent and to decode messages from the resulting motion trajectory. The constraints of maximal robot integrity and minimal motion deviation are established as fundamental principles underlying secrecy. As a proof of concept, we conduct experiments in simulated environments across various manipulation tasks, incorporating robotic embodiments equipped with generalist multimodal policies.
Paper Structure (17 sections, 7 equations, 6 figures, 1 table)

This paper contains 17 sections, 7 equations, 6 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Foundations of Robotics
  3. Dynamical Simulation
  4. Mechanical Robot
  5. Steganography in Robotics
  6. Problem Formulation
  7. Trail-and-Error Heuristic
  8. Theoretical Analysis
  9. Random Coding
  10. Expected Number of Trials
  11. Probability of Complete Coverage
  12. Experiments
  13. Simulation Setup
  14. Visualisation
  15. Secrecy Analysis
  16. ...and 2 more sections

Figures (6)

  • Figure 1: Overview of steganography in robotic motion control: Alice encodes a message as a stimulus that affects the interaction between the robotic agent and the environment, whereas Bob decodes the message from the sequence of actions transmitted via the robot's in-built communication system.
  • Figure 2: Expected number of trials required for complete coverage of message space.
  • Figure 3: Probability of complete coverage with respect to the number of trials conducted.
  • Figure 4: Visualisation of robotic motion control: each column represents a motion trajectory with the non-stimulated one shown in the first column and steganographic variations in the rest, whereas each row represents a sequential time-step.
  • Figure 5: Secrecy analysis based on the statistics of trajectory lengths.
  • ...and 1 more figures