IoT Security and Computation Management on a Multi-Robot System for Rescue Operations Based on a Cloud Framework

Abstract

There is a growing body of literature that recognizes the importance of Multi-Robot coordination and Modular Robotics. This work evaluates the secure coordination of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) via a drone simulation in Unity and an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) as a rover. Each robot is equipped with sensors to gather information to send to a cloud server where all computations are performed. Each vehicle is registered by blockchain ledger-based network security. In addition to these, relevant information and alerts are displayed on a website for the users. The usage of UAV–UGV cooperation allows for autonomous surveillance due to the high vantage field of view. Furthermore, the usage of cloud computation lowers the cost of microcontrollers by reducing their complexity. Lastly, blockchain technology mitigates the security issues related to adversarial or malicious robotic nodes connecting to the cluster and not agreeing to privacy rules and norms.