It was demonstrated by a new study that mobile robots can collectively verify real-world data for smart contracts and withstand attacks.
A new way to bring trustworthy real-world data onto blockchains could be offered by a swarm of autonomous robots, eliminating the reliance on centralized sources.
The concept, which is detailed in a new preprint study titled Swarm Oracle: Trustless Blockchain Agreements through Robot Swarms, builds on earlier peer-reviewed research where it was shown that mobile robots could reach reliable consensus, even in times of disruption, cyberattack, or in hostile environments. The new study applies that approach to a persistent problem in blockchain design: how to get verified real-world data into smart contracts without introducing new points of trust.
External, real-world data is securely supplied to blockchain smart contracts by a blockchain oracle, allowing those contracts to execute based on information from outside the blockchain network.
The “oracle problem” is the term for the challenge of securely feeding off-chain data into decentralized systems. Blockchains like Ethereum are constructed for trustless operation, where each node independently validates transactions. However, that same architecture prevents smart contracts from accessing external information, like weather reports or price feeds, without third-party input.
Today’s blockchain oracles, like Chainlink, aggregate data from multiple sources to reduce reliance on any one feed. But centralized risks can still be reintroduced, either through opaque aggregation methods or single points of failure.
Swarm Oracle presents a new model: robot swarms. The system utilizes a collective of simple, affordable mobile robots—each with basic sensors and communication hardware—to collect environmental data. A consensus is then arrived at through a Byzantine fault-tolerant protocol, after which the swarm can publish its findings to a blockchain for smart contracts.
Earlier research is expanded upon by this concept, which integrates blockchain publishing into the robot swarm’s decision-making. A 2023 Nature study had previously shown how swarms could maintain consensus accuracy even when up to one-third of robots were compromised, misreporting data, or physically interfering with others.
Robot Swarms Use Local Blockchains and Reputation Systems to Enhance Security and Consensus
The robots in the new system host a permissioned blockchain locally, which allows them to store and verify data offline. Finalized agreements can be uploaded to public blockchains like Ethereum when appropriate. The local chain reduces communication overhead while enabling transparency.
The swarm has a built-in reputation system. Robots that try to manipulate it are gradually excluded from future consensus rounds, which provides a mechanism for “self-healing,” with faulty or malicious robots losing the ability to participate.
The Swarm Oracle protocol was tested in simulations and with physical robots known as Pi-Pucks—ground-based devices powered by Raspberry Pi boards. While the experiments used identical robots, the system is meant to support diverse swarm types.
Potential uses for Swarm Oracle include verifying disaster damage for insurance claims, monitoring air or water quality, or supporting decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs). Due to their independent operation, inaccessible or costly areas can be reached by the robots.
Challenges are acknowledged by the researchers. Malicious agents could attempt to mimic honest robots, and while robots can recover from temporary disconnections, long distances may strain communication.
The concept of robots as blockchain participants isn’t new—decentralized hardware oracles for specific tasks such as network connectivity have been explored by projects like Helium.
Cryptocurrency wallets are also being embedded into autonomous systems by robotics developers to carry out transactions for their users. This concept is a part of a growing interest in employing autonomous agents for economic decisions, such as routing deliveries or managing grid loads.
Whether Swarm Oracle can move from simulation to real-world deployment remains to be seen, with its adoption being slowed by cost, the availability of robots, and a general mistrust of AI.
