Blockchain and Emerging Distributed Ledger Technologies for Decentralized Multi-robot Systems

Abstract

Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs), particularly blockchain, are paving the way to securing and managing distributed and large-scale systems of autonomous agents. We look into how these technologies are moving out of the lab and into the real world within the robotics field. Despite the scalability and real-world applicability concerns, new solutions have emerged that show resilience to intermittent connectivity, as well as scalable solutions for managed or permissioned networks. We present a review on the various use cases that different DLTs can support in multi-robot systems. We argue that the majority of the work to date on open and permissionless blockchains is only applicable to a subset of robotics use cases, with novel DLT architectures and permissioned blockchains driving adoption across industrial and more mature application scenarios.