Blockchain: a new framework for swarm RObotic Systems

Eduardo Castello
Brussels School of Engineering

Autonomous robots will soon be part of our everyday lives. Large groups, or swarms, of robots, will carry out all sorts of tasks, often cooperating with humans. This means we must think carefully about how to program these robots in such a way that they can be trusted. In other words, we must ensure that robots fulfil their role and that any harmful behaviours can be easily identified, or prevented entirely.

As a part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie ‘BROS‘ project, Eduardo Castello will join the teams of Marco Dorigo (IRIDIA) and Alex Pentland (MIT Media Lab), where he will take part in developing robotic systems whose behaviour can be certified using the Blockchain technology. The basic concept is to use ‘smart contracts’, one of this technology's most innovative tools, in order to manage interactions between robots and look at how they these smart contracts can produce ‘safe’ robotic systems. The BROS project, which will last three years, will be carried out in close collaboration with cryptography and cryptocurrency experts from the MIT Media Lab and experts on swarm robotics from the IRIDIA laboratory.

End of the project: 31/08/2020

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 751615
Dates
Created on August 6, 2018