Domestic robots: a case study on security in ubiquitous computing

The purpose of this essay is to look at the existing publications about domestic robots. Specifically those which are about security and privacy concerns and find possible reasons for the lack of papers in this research area. INTRODUCTION The industry as well as the academic world seem so agree that robots will become an integral part of our daily lives in the near future. Much of the early work on robotics focused on building industrial robots where robots helped automate parts of the manufacturing process. A more recent trend is that robots start appearing in households performing tasks such as cleaning windows, mowing lawns or cleaning floors (Figure 1). Figure 1: iRobot Roomba 560 Vacuum Cleaner [14]. Robots like these have very specific tasks and can perform those tasks well, but generally don’t offer a great set of interfaces to control/access them. Due to that fact, these kinds of robots are not very likely to be targets of potential attacks. We can assume that more sophisticated robots like the PR2 robot (Figure 2), which for example can be told via webinterface to go grab a beer in the fridge and bring it to a certain location, will be used in household at some point in the future. An unauthorized entity being able to take over control of such a robot with its multiple sensors, actuators and mobility could cause serious harm. For this reason it is imperative to take security and privacy consideration into account when building such systems. Figure 2: Willow Garage PR2, Robot for Research and Innovation [15]. Two papers addressing security and privacy in the context of robots, i.e. [1, 2] both from 2009, mention in their respective introductions that, according to them, there is a surprising lack of research done in this area. Five years later and there are still very little research papers devoted to this specific area of research.