Implementing a Robot Intrusion Prevention System (RIPS) for ROS 2

TL;DR

This paper presents RIPS, a tailored intrusion prevention system for ROS 2 robotic applications, including its architecture, threat model, rule language, and evaluation on a social robot in a competitive testbed.

Contribution

The paper introduces RIPS, the first intrusion prevention system specifically designed for ROS 2 robots, with a custom rule language and comprehensive evaluation.

Findings

RIPS effectively detects and prevents intrusions in robotic scenarios.

The system successfully protected a social robot in a competitive environment.

The approach enhances security for cyber-physical robotic systems.

Abstract

It is imperative to develop an intrusion prevention system (IPS), specifically designed for autonomous robotic systems. This is due to the unique nature of these cyber-physical systems (CPS), which are not merely typical distributed systems. These systems employ their own systems software (i.e. robotic middleware and frameworks) and execute distinct components to facilitate interaction with various sensors and actuators, and other robotic components (e.g. cognitive subsystems). Furthermore, as cyber-physical systems, they engage in interactions with humans and their physical environment, as exemplified by social robots. These interactions can potentially lead to serious consequences, including physical damage. In response to this need, we have designed and implemented RIPS, an intrusion prevention system tailored for robotic applications based on ROS 2, the framework that has established itself as the de facto standard for developing robotic applications. This manuscript provides a comprehensive exposition of the issue, the security aspects of ROS 2 applications, and the key points of the threat model we created for our robotic environment. It also describes the architecture and the implementation of our initial research prototype and a language specifically designed for defining detection and prevention rules for diverse, real-world robotic scenarios. Moreover, the manuscript provides a comprehensive evaluation of the approach, that includes a set of experiments with a real social robot executing a well known testbed used in international robotic competitions.