RobEthiChor: automated context-aware ethics-based negotiation for autonomous robots

Replication package for the paper RobEthiChor: automated context-aware ethics-based negotiation for autonomous robots

Authors

This study has been designed, developed, and reported by the following investigators:

• Mashal Afzal Memon (University of L'Aquila, Italy)
• Gianluca Filippone (Gran Sasso Science Institute, Italy)
• Gian Luca Scoccia (Gran Sasso Science Institute, Italy)
• Marco Autili (University of L'Aquila, Italy)
• Paola Inverardi (Gran Sasso Science Institute, Italy)

Cite this work

Memon, M. A., Filippone, G., Scoccia, G. L., Autili, M., & Inverardi, P. (2026). RobEthiChor: Automated context-aware ethics-based negotiation for autonomous robots. Journal of Systems and Software, 232, 112692. doi:10.1016/j.jss.2025.112692

@article{robethichor,
    title = {RobEthiChor: Automated context-aware ethics-based negotiation for autonomous robots},
    author = {Mashal Afzal Memon and Gianluca Filippone and Gian Luca Scoccia and Marco Autili and Paola Inverardi},
    journal = {Journal of Systems and Software},
    volume = {232},
    pages = {112692},
    year = {2026},
    issn = {0164-1212},
    doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2025.112692}
}

Repository Structure

towards-uncertainty-aware-bts
|   README.md                               # This file
|   LICENSE                                 # License file
├---analysis                                # Jupyter Notebook files for the results analyis
├---results                                 # Raw log files from the experimentation
└---ros_ws                                  # ROS 2 workspace with RobEthiChor
|   └---src
|       ├---robethichor                     # RobEthiChor ROS 2 package
|       └---robethichor_interfaces          # ROS 2 package for RobEthiChor services interfaces
└---run                                     # Experimental settings and experiment running facilities
    ├---scalability_experiments
    |   |   run_experiment.bash             # Script for running scalability experiments
    |   |   generate_test_cases.py          # Test cases generation script
    |   └---test_cases                      # Test cases used in the paper
    └---simulation
        |   disposition_activation.json     # Scenario-related disposition activation configuration
        |   echical_implications.json       # Scenario-related task ethical implication model
        |   run_usecase.bash                # Script for running airport negotiation scenarios
        ├---airport
        ├---hospital
        └---personas
            |   personas.pdf                # Personas description
            |   ground_truth.xlsx           # Ground thruth expected data and negotiations outcome observation
            └---[A-J]                       # Personas profiles and status implementation

Study Results & Analysis

Collected data

Raw data obtained from experiments are contained in the results/ folder as a set of log files:

• ping_results.txt contains the results of ping messages sent during the experimentation to monitor the network latency for robot-to-robot messaging
• scalability-offrobot.log contains the logged negotiation results for the scalability experiments in the off-robot setting
• scalability-onrobot.log contains the logged negotiation results for the scalability experiments in the on-robot setting
• simulation-[airport/hospital]-offrobot.log contains the logged negotiation results for the negotiation scenarios in the airport and hospital context in the off-robot setting
• simulation-[airport/hospital]-onrobot.log contains the logged negotiation results for the negotiation scenarios in the airport and hospital context in the on-robot setting

More info in the results README file.

Data analysis

Log analysis and results are contained in the analysis/ folder as a set of Jupyter Notebook files:

• deployment-comparison.ipynb contains a comparative analysis of the negotiation times measured for the scalability experiments in the on-robot and off-robot with profiles containing up to 100 dispositions.
• log_comparison.ipynb compares the logs obtained in the simulated scenarios for results consistency.
• ping_analysis.py extracts overall stats for the network latency.
• scalability-offrobot-analysis.ipynb and scalability-onrobot-analysis.ipynb contain the analysis on the performance scalability of the negotiation approach.
• simulation_analysis.ipynb contains the analysis of the results of the negotiation scenarios.

More info in the analysis README file.

Experiment replication

Note

More info on the implementation in the RobEthiChor-ROS repository

Requirements

• Ubuntu 22.04
• ROS 2 Humble
• ROS dev-tools
• Rosdep

Download and installation

Download the repository:

git clone https://github.com/RoboChor/robethichor-ethics-based-negotiation.git

Build the ROS package:

Note

Rosdep must be installed and initialized before building the ROS package. Install Rosdep:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3-rosdep

Initialize Rosdep:

sudo rosdep init
rosdep update

cd robethichor-ethics-based-negotiation/ros_ws
rosdep install --from-paths src -y --ignore-src
colcon build

Important

RobEthiChor must be deployed on the machine that will execute it. To test the on-robot deployment, clone the repository or move the ros_ws/ folder on the robot before installing dependencies and building the ROS packages.

Alternatively, RobEthiChor can be built locally and then moved on the target machine (e.g., if dev-tools are not available). In this case, move the whole workspace folder after running colcon build locally:

scp . user@host:/path/to/ros_ws

Then, cd into the moved ros_ws/ folder in the target machine and reinstall the dependencies using Rosdep (install and init if required as shown above):

sudo apt-get update
rosdep install --from-paths src -y --ignore-src

Running experiments

The run/ folder contains the experimental settings and the scripts required to run them. They must be run outside of the robots despite of the chosen deployment setting.

The files run_usecase.bash and run_experiment.bash provides support for launching the experiments. Documentation on the parameters can be found within them.

Negotiation Scenarios

Configuration and running facilities can be found in the simulation/ folder.

off-robot scenario:

cd ../run/simulation
chmod +x run_usecase.bash
./run_usecase.bash --launch true --context <airport/hospital>

Two terminals will open, each for one of the two robots. Log files will be stored inside the newly created simulation/results/ folder.

on-robot scenario:

Deploy RobEthiChor on the two negotiating robots as explained above, and copy the usecases/disposition_activation.json and usecases/ethical_implications.json files inside the robot's ros_ws/ folder:

cd ../run/simulation
scp disposition_activation.json user@host:/path/to/ros_ws
scp ethical_implications.json user@host:/path/to/ros_ws

Then, from the robot's ros_ws/ folder, run:

. install/setup.bash
ros2 launch robethichor robethichor_launch.py ns:=[ROBOT_NAME] port:=[ROBOT_PORT] ethical_implication_file:=/path/to/ros_ws/ethical_implications.json disposition_activation_file:=/path/to/ros_ws/disposition_activation.json log_output_file:=/path/to/ros_ws/negotiation_results.log

Important

Substitute ROBOT_NAME and ROBOT_PORT with the name of each of the robots (e.g., robassistant_1 and robassistant_2) and the robot's connector port (e.g., 5000 and 5001)

Finally, run the scenarios from the computer:

chmod +x run_usecase.bash
./run_usecase.bash --names <robot1_name> <robot2_name> --hosts <robot1_host> <robot2_host> --ports <robot1_port> <robot2_port>

Important

Substitute parameters according to the configurations provided to the launched robots. robot1_host and robot2_host must contain the IP addresses of the two robots.

Log files will be stored inside the newly created results/ folder within the robot's ros_ws/ folder.

Scalability Experiments

Configuration and running facilities can be found in the scalability_experiments/ folder.

Note

Test cases used for running experiments are already contained into the repository. To generate new test cases, use the generate_test_cases.py python script:

python3 generate_test_cases --n <N> --p <P> --c <NUMBER_OF_CASES>

off-robot scenario:

cd ../run/scalability_experiments
chmod +x run_experiment.bash
./run_experiment.bash --launch true

Two terminals will open, each for one of the two robots. Log files will be stored inside the newly created scalability_experiments/results/ folder.

Note

The script run_experiment.bash will prompt, before running each configuration, the wait times between each negotiation so to avoid overlapping different negotiations.

on-robot scenario:

Deploy RobEthiChor on the two negotiating robots as explained above, and copy the test_cases/disposition_activation.json and test_cases/ethical_implications.json files inside the robot's ros_ws/ folder:

cd ../run/simulation
scp scalability_experiments/test_cases/disposition_activation.json user@host:/path/to/ros_ws
scp scalability_experiments/test_cases/ethical_implications.json user@host:/path/to/ros_ws

Then, from the robot's ros_ws/ folder, run:

. install/setup.bash
ros2 launch robethichor robethichor_launch.py ns:=[ROBOT_NAME] port:=[ROBOT_PORT] ethical_implication_file:=/path/to/ros_ws/ethical_implications.json disposition_activation_file:=/path/to/ros_ws/disposition_activation.json log_output_file:=/path/to/ros_ws/negotiation_results.log

Important

Substitute ROBOT_NAME and ROBOT_PORT with the name of each of the robots (e.g., robassistant_1 and robassistant_2) and the robot's connector port (e.g., 5000 and 5001)

Finally, run the scenarios from the computer:

chmod +x run_experiment.bash
./run_experiment.bash --names <robot1_name> <robot2_name> --hosts <robot1_host> <robot2_host> --ports <robot1_port> <robot2_port>

Important

Substitute parameters according to the configurations provided to the launched robots. robot1_host and robot2_host must contain the IP addresses of the two robots.

Log files will be stored inside the newly created results/ folder within the robot's ros_ws/ folder.