  In industrial applications, security and trust in the system are requirements
for widespread adoption. Blockchain technologies have emerged as a potential
solution to address identity management and secure data aggregation and
control. However, the vast majority of works to date utilize Ethereum and smart
contracts that are not scalable or well suited for industrial applications.
This paper presents what is, to the best of our knowledge, the first
integration of ROS 2 with the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain. With a framework
that leverages Fabric smart contracts and ROS 2 through a Go application, we
delve into the potential of using blockchain for controlling robots, and
gathering and processing their data. We demonstrate the applicability of the
proposed framework to an inventory management use-case where different robots
are used to detect objects of interest in a given area. Designed to meet the
requirements of distributed robotic systems, we show that the performance of
the robots is not impacted significantly by the blockchain layer. At the same
time, we provide examples for developing other applications that integrate
Fabric smart contracts with ROS 2. Our results pave the way for further
adoption of blockchain technologies in autonomous robotic systems for building
trustable data sharing.
