ROS-Chain

By Shenhui Zhang, Bernie Liu, Ming Tang

Hainan University, RobAI-Lab🤖 & HKUST, Hong Kong.

NOTIFICATION

This branch is future plan ⭐, if you want to experience the basic functions and characteristics of ROS-Chain, please switch to the easy_use branch.

❓What is ROS-Chain​​

ROS-Chain serves as a kind of interaction scheme for ROS and Ethereum in a secure and convenient way. ROS-Chain is built on SM algorithm family which includes SM2, SM3 and SM4, UDP transport protocol, Ethereum and, of course, ROS. As a user, what you need to do to get ROS-Chain works is just to input some key information(Like names of topics, your comma etc.).

ROS-Chain presents a user-friendly framework that blocks the complicated implementation process of detailed interaction scheme along with a unified Ethereum Blockchain network reserving for interaction. Our goal is to present a kind of Information storage and sharing media with security and flexibility to facilitate the information communication in all ROS systems within the world. Our experiments focus on the security performance, encryption and decryption performance and stability of SM algorithm family.

Thanks for the key-exchange scheme based on SM algorithm family, ROS-Chain is equipped with a complete secure encryption mechanism in the cost of a slight loss in performance. Every user has a unique identity and related interactive permissions like authority granting, information check and messages storage in the Ethereum network. Through this, every user having registered in the network can not only do the job of persistent, tamper proof storage of critical information, but also can conduct trusted information exchange communication with the authorization of either party of information communication, out of the intervention of third party.

🛠️ How to use

Step 1️⃣: Set up ROS and related environments

ROS-Chain is used for robots build upon ROS Melodic, so please set up ROS Melodic in Ubuntu18.04 and put the listen_node in the repo to your local catkin workspace. And since Python 2.7 comes with Ubuntu 18.04 without Redis module, you may need to install it manually like this:

pip install redis -i https://pypi.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/simple

While I suggest you open the listen_node in your catkin workspace through Clion, fixing the python interpreter to python2.7 in the /usr/bin and run the following commands in the terminal of Clion:

apt install python-pip
pip install redis -i https://pypi.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/simple

and run catkin_make to compile your workspace:

catkin_make

Then you need to add the path of your catkin workspace to the bashrc like this:

vim ~/.bashrc
:i
export CATKIN_WS=/home/zsh/catkin_ws
:wq
source ~/.bashrc

Next, you shall install and configure Redis in your PC properly. Please refer to the Redis official. Also you need to prepare the environment of gcc , g++ & python 3.6+ well. If you have no idea about that, this blog is a good start and for the python, we suggest you use the anaconda3.

Step 2️⃣: Run it!

For the first use, you shall run register.py to upload your SM4 key which is used to encrypt your ROS messages. And please choose one of the SM2 public key in the SM2_keys.txt file which is used to encrypt your SM4 key when the program need you to input.

python register.py

Run the console.py in the listen_node in the repo.

python console.py

After that, there will be an interaction to define nodes whose information you want to push to Blockchain.

Step 3️⃣: Check the topic

You can run the command below and check the working status of the nodes on your PC.

rostopic list

📑Release Plan

ROS-Chain is still in the process of testing and revisions of codes. In mid-Feb, 2022, we will have final version released.

📧Contact Us​

If you have any concerns here, please post as Github issues, or send an e-mail to Shenhui Zhang by freak01716@163.com; o0freak0o01716@gmail.com.