The integration of blockchain technology in robotic systems has been met by the community with a combination of hype and skepticism. The current literature shows that there is indeed potential for more secure and trustable distributed robotic systems. However, it is still unclear in what aspects of robotics beyond high-level decision making can blockchain technology be indeed usable. This paper explores the limits of a permissioned blockchain framework, Hyperledger Fabric, for teleoperation. Remote operation of mobile robots can benefit from the auditability and security properties of a blockchain. We study the potential benefits and the main limitations of such an approach. We introduce a new design and implementation for a event-driven Fabric-ROS 2 bridge that is able to maintain lower latencies at higher network loads than previous solutions. We also show this opens the door to more realistic use cases and applications. Our experiments with small aerial robots show latencies in the hundreds of milliseconds and simultaneous control of both a single and multi-robot system. We analyze the main trade-offs and limitations for real-world near real-time remote teleoperation.

翻译：区块链技术在机器人系统中的应用在学术界引发了热议与质疑。现有文献表明，区块链确实有望构建更安全、可信的分布式机器人系统，但除高级决策外，该技术在机器人领域的实际可用性仍不明确。本文探索了许可型区块链框架Hyperledger Fabric在远程操作中的应用极限。移动机器人的远程操作可从区块链的可审计性与安全特性中获益，我们研究了这种方法的潜在优势与主要局限。我们提出了一种新型事件驱动的Fabric-ROS 2桥接设计与实现，能够在更高网络负载下维持低于以往解决方案的延迟。实验表明，这为更现实的使用场景与应用打开了大门。基于小型空中机器人的测试显示，延迟可控制在数百毫秒级别，并实现了对单机器人及多机器人系统的同步控制。最后，我们分析了真实近实时远程操作中的主要权衡与局限性。