Questions to be answered

What’s a blockchain? Which are the possible applications in robotics? How to decide if a given blockchain is good for your application?

Which blockchain tools exist to enhance the dependability and transparency of robotic systems? Which methods are appropriate for integrating both technologies? What are the novel approaches and methodologies for integrating robots with blockchain-based technologies? Which methods are appropriate for integrating both technologies? What are the novel approaches and methodologies for integrating robotics with blockchain technology?

Description

Robotic systems are beginning to transform various industries, including transportation and healthcare, facilitated by technical developments such as cloud computing, innovative hardware design, and new manufacturing techniques. Nonetheless, certain attributes that render robots suitable for specific future applications—such as autonomy, learning, and information sharing—may also provoke apprehensions over the transition of the technology from academic settings to the public domain. For example, managing the behavior of extensive teams of robots continues to provide distinct issues for human operators. Moreover, significant concerns over data privacy, security, and transparency may pose challenges for the future application of this technology in highly sensitive contexts. Consequently, addressing these challenges may be essential for widespread adoption.

The blockchain, a nascent technology originating from digital currency, illustrates that by integrating peer-to-peer networks with cryptographic algorithms, participants can achieve consensus transparently without requiring a governing entity. Blockchain-based instruments, such as "smart contracts," are demonstrating significant potential to enhance the security, autonomy, flexibility, and profitability of robotic operations. Consequently, connecting solely scientific fields with practical applications.

Nonetheless, the opportunities presented by distributed ledger technology and web 3.0 for robotics, particularly in networked and swarm robotics, as well as robotics for smart cities and smart supply chains, remain largely unrecognized. We contend that there remains inadequate understanding of the emerging sciences and technologies associated with blockchain, distributed ledger, and web 3.0 settings, particularly regarding their application to robotic systems where trust, privacy, and cybersecurity are essential.

This workshop aims to address this gap and empower participating academics, people from industry, and entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs to transcend the traditional perspective of robotic systems, so enhancing our comprehension of the potential and constraints of integrating robots with blockchain technology.

Organisation of the WS

There will be 5 5’ short TED style talks. They will be followed by a discussion based on interactive tools like mentimeter and the likes. There will be a follow up using pol.is.

Intended outcome

A 5 pages white paper about Blockchain in Robotics with a one page executive summary)

About societal and economic needs that could be addressed, available technologies, opportunities and risks for the future.

Speakers, Panelists, etc

F. Bonsignorio, E. Castello-Ferrer and Onder Gurcan will present the technology and the current applications and animate the discussion about possible novel services and robot-as-a-service scenarios, and about a possible (unescapable?) economy of robots. Other speakers need to be confirmed.

There will be an open call for short talks to collect info about ongoing research and experiences in Europe and globally.

Topic Groups and/or Innovation networks involved

Industrial Robotics, AICOR, Software Engineering, Benchmarking and Competitions

Projects involved

Further information

Pentland, A., Lipton, A. , Hardjono, T. (2021). Building the New Economy: Data as Capital, MIT Connection Science & Engineering,

Buterin, V. (2013). Ethereum white paper. URL https://ethereum.org/en/whitepaper/. [Online; accessed: 11 December 2024]

Merkle, R. (1982). US4309569A US Patent. URL https://patents.google.com/patent/US4309569A/en. [On-line; accessed: 11 December 2024].

Bonsignorio, F., Zereik, E. (2021) Merging BSP based swarm dynamics and distributed ledger technologies for smart marine infrastructures, IFAC-PapersOnLine 56 (2), 6716-6723

Berman, I., Zereik, E., Kapitonov, A., Bonsignorio, F., Khassanov, A., Oripova, A., Lonshakov, S., and Bulatov, V. (2020). Trustable environmental monitoring by means of sensors networks on swarming autonomous marine vessels and distributed ledger technology. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 7.

Castello Ferrer, E. (2019). The blockchain: a new framework for robotic swarm systems. In Proceedings of the Future Technologies Conference (FTC) 2018: Volume 2, 1037–1058. Springer.

Kapitonov, A., Lonshakov, S., Berman, I., Castello-Ferrer, E., Bonsignorio, F., Bulatov, V., and Svistov, A. (2019). Robotic services for new paradigm smart cities based on decentralized technologies. Ledger, 4.

Organisers

• Fabio Bonsignorio (University of Zagreb FER and Heron Robots), fabio.bonsignorio@gmail.com, fabio.bonsignorio@fer.hr, fabio.bonsignorio@heronrobots.com