HCDA: A hidden cross-domain authentication protocol for embodied intelligence in smart manufacturing

Abstract

In smart manufacturing utilizing embodied intelligent robots, frequent cross-domain data transmissions introduce significant challenges on key management. While existing authentication protocols for cross-domain smart manufacturing offer certain advantages in terms of key storage security, their complex network structures and the necessity for repeated session key updates introduce risks related to master key loss, as well as elevated computation cost and communication overhead. To overcome these challenges, this paper proposes a hidden cross-domain authentication (HCDA) protocol for embodied intelligence in smart manufacturing. The domain servers in intelligent manufacturing, functioning as consensus nodes, collaboratively establish a blockchain consortium to securely record public keys and public authentication parameters. Besides, the HCDA protocol based on encryption migration method to reduce the authentication delay of embodied intelligent robots. Specifically, embodied intelligent robots perform symmetric-key encryption/decryption operations and one-way hash functions for authentication request, while domain servers execute the Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) algorithm to generate session key. The security of HCDA protocol is proved by informal analysis. Finally, the simulation results for computation cost and communication overhead demonstrate that the HCDA protocol exhibits significant performance advantages compared with the related protocols.