Study on Decentralization of Spherical Amphibious Multi-robot Control System Based on Smart Contract and Blockchain

With the development of intelligent bionic robots and the improvement of military application, a single robot cannot meet the requirements of the tasks of the current era. The more complex tasks require not only that the robot be able to pass through the field barriers and the amphibious environment, but also that the robot be able to collaborate in a multi-robot system. Consequently, research on the multi-robot control system of spherical amphibious robots is very important. Presently, the main research on amphibious robots is to improve the functions of a single robot, in the absence of the study of the multi-robot control system. Existing systems primarily use a centralized control methodology. Although the transfer of central node can be achieved, there is still a problem of Byzantine fault tolerance in military applications, that is, when the amphibious multi-robot system is invaded by the enemy. The central node may not only fail to accomplish the task, but also lose control of other robots, with severe consequences. To solve the above problems, this paper proposed a decentralized method of spherical amphibious multi-robot control system based on blockchain technology. First, the point-to-point information network based on long range radio technology of low power wide area network was set up, we designed the blockchain system for embedded application environment and the decentralized hardware and software architecture of multi-robot control system. On this basis, the consensus plugin, smart contract and decentralized multi-robot control algorithm were designed to achieve decentralization. The experimental results of consensus of spherical amphibious multi-robot showed the effectiveness of the decentralization.