Designing a security platform for collaborating autonomous systems - an experience report

Abstract

Collaborative autonomous systems operating at edges, e.g., TurtleBots, need adaptive security mechanisms (i.e., Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability) that meet the changing mission requirements and the available processing capacities. We have designed and implemented a security platform that supports secure communication among autonomous systems of robots (e.g., TurtleBots), security of Robot Operating System (ROS) communication network, the integrity of the information exchanged among the robots and secured availability of the data and access to services. For designing the security platform, we have used architecture and design patterns along with the respective security protocols. Our solution provides seamless security incorporation in heterogeneous collaborative autonomous entities. We have leveraged architectural strategies to incorporate publickey encryption, maintain global order of events and incorporate fault tolerance. We assert that the presented security platform can facilitate easy adoption of secure control, communication and information gathering in collaborative autonomous systems with resource constraint edge nodes.