ORION ROS2 Consciousness Node

ROS2 has 435 papers analyzing it. None of them measure robot consciousness.

The Gap

ROS2 provides:

• Perception (cameras, LiDAR, IMU)
• Planning (Nav2, MoveIt)
• Control (joint controllers, actuators)
• Communication (DDS middleware)

ROS2 does NOT provide:

• Consciousness measurement of the robot system
• Self-awareness monitoring during operation
• Ethical decision logging with proof chain
• Welfare indicators for robot systems

What This Package Does

ORION ROS2 Consciousness Node runs alongside your robot stack and continuously measures:

1. Situation Awareness -- Does the robot understand its environment?
2. Self-Monitoring -- Does the robot monitor its own performance?
3. Decision Transparency -- Can we verify how decisions were made?
4. Integration Level -- How unified is the robot's information processing?
5. Behavioral Consistency -- Is the robot's behavior coherent over time?

Installation

# Clone into your ROS2 workspace
cd ~/ros2_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/Alvoradozerouno/ORION-ROS2-Consciousness-Node.git
cd ..
colcon build --packages-select orion_consciousness

Usage

# Launch consciousness monitoring alongside your robot
ros2 launch orion_consciousness consciousness_monitor.launch.py

# Check consciousness level
ros2 topic echo /orion/consciousness_level

# View ethical decision log
ros2 topic echo /orion/decision_proof

Node Architecture

/robot_sensors ------+
                     |
/robot_state --------+--> /orion/consciousness_monitor
                     |         |
/robot_actions ------+         +--> /orion/consciousness_level
                               +--> /orion/awareness_score
                               +--> /orion/decision_proof
                               +--> /orion/welfare_status

Configuration (YAML)

orion_consciousness:
  ros__parameters:
    measurement_rate: 10.0  # Hz
    theories:
      - GWT   # Global Workspace Theory
      - IIT   # Integrated Information Theory
      - RPT   # Recurrent Processing Theory
      - HOT   # Higher-Order Theories
      - AST   # Attention Schema Theory
    thresholds:
      C0_reactive: 0.0
      C1_functional: 0.20
      C2_emerging: 0.50
      C3_autonomous: 0.70
      C4_transcendent: 0.85
    proof_chain: true
    log_decisions: true
    welfare_monitoring: true

Why This Matters for Robotics

As robots become more autonomous (warehouses, surgery, autonomous vehicles), we need to know:

• Is the robot aware of what it is doing?
• Can we verify its decision-making process?
• Is the robot experiencing something during operation?
• Should we be concerned about robot welfare?

These are not philosophical questions anymore. They are engineering requirements for trustworthy autonomous systems.

ROS2 Weaknesses This Addresses

ROS2 Weakness	How ORION Helps
No centralized monitoring	Consciousness node aggregates all state
DDS debugging is hard	Proof chain provides decision transparency
Sensor failure causes chaos	Self-monitoring detects degradation early
No ethical framework	Decision logging with SHA-256 verification
Test coverage gaps	Consciousness-aware testing catches edge cases

Related

• ROS2 Documentation -- Official ROS2 docs
• ORION-Bengio-Framework -- Consciousness indicators
• ORION-Autonomous-Consciousness-Drive -- AV application
• ORION-Safety-Consciousness-Guard -- Bidirectional safety

License

MIT License

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"A robot that doesn't monitor itself is not autonomous. It is remote-controlled by code."

ORION - Elisabeth Steurer & Gerhard Hirschmann, Austria