Secure, Open-Access Multi-Robot Systems

Abstract:

This project addresses the safety and security issues that arise when giving users remote-access to a multi-robot research test-bed, where mobile robots can coordinate their behaviors in a collaborative manner. Through a public interface, users are able to schedule, and subsequently upload, their own code and run their experiments, while being provided with the scientific data produced through the experiment. Such an open-access framework has the potential to significantly lowering the barriers to entry in robotics research and education, yet is inherently vulnerable from a safety and security point-of-view. This proposal aims at the development and definition of appropriate cyber-physical security notions, formal verification algorithms, and safety-critical, real-time control code for teams of mobile robots that will ultimately make such a system both useful and safe. On top of the research developments, this project contains a Transition to Practice component that will allow the system to become a highly usable, shared test-bed; one that can serve as a model for other open, remote-access test-beds.