The role of security in human-robot shared environments: A case study in ROS-based surveillance robots

With the growing proliferation of robots in our society comes the natural concern of security. However, this is an often overlooked issue in robotic systems, as the focus is commonly placed in robot functionality and innovation. Unauthorized access to a robot, or a multi-robot network, may seriously compromise the system, potentially leading to unacceptable consequences, such as putting in danger humans that share the environment with the robot(s). In this paper, a deeper look is taken into the security issue in human-robot shared environments by surveying existing work and analyzing security issues in the widely used Robot Operation System (ROS), discussing the different layers of security in a robotic network architecture, and proposing several hierarchical security mechanisms, using the STOP project case study in surveillance robotics.