Interview with Robonomics developers about their leading IoT blockchain for Polkadot

At the beginning of this year, we published a review called Robonomics Network: the first economy based on robotics. But because Robonomics compete for the present Kusama parachain slots, we decided to dig a bit deeper into their tech and we asked devs from this IoT project to get our readers even more insight. So let's straight jump into it!

Hello, thank you for joining our interview. Can you tell our audience a brief description of what Robonomics Network aims to do?

Robonomics is an Internet of Things (IoT) development infrastructure that seeks to unite an ecosystem of autonomous machine devices under one network, thereby creating what we refer to as ‘the robot economy’. By using distributed ledger technology and planning to integrate into the Polkadot ecosystem, Robonomics aims to solve the largest issue to date with centralized IoT applications: Security!

In a world where “next-level process automation and process virtualization” supported by industrial IoT technology, robots, and digital twins, will be the single largest industry-agnostic technology trend of the next decade, security must be prioritized. And there is why comes Robonomics that is developing a network on top of which millions of interconnected, autonomous machine devices can connect seamlessly, and exchange data and monetary value at scale.

What should readers imagine upon robotics? Drones delivering packages to customers, autonomous cars driving with some decentralized version of Uber, or sensors in smart cities?

The beauty of Robonomics, and perhaps why the developers continually strive to perfect the network after 7 years of development, is because it seeks to enable all of the above IoT applications under one connected framework. Whereas other IoT networks may target one specific use case, such as autonomous vehicles, Robonomics envisions a future where all of these applications can be interconnected and therefore exchange valuable data to improve functions across any and all IoT ecosystems.

Thus, when readers envision Robonomics, they should not be considering one particular use case, but rather they should note that Robonomics is the technological infrastructure, or code-base, upon which infinite IoT and smart city use cases can connect securely and be implemented at scale.

For those familiar with commercial cloud computing services for building, testing, and deploying applications such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft’s Azure, they can consider Robonomics in this category regarding the service it offers for decentralized IoT applications. The only difference, however, is that Robonomics’ framework for IoT applications aims to achieve a level of security that was previously unavailable with such conventional cloud-based IoT systems, or any other public blockchains.

In addition, the Robonomics project retains other functionality that blockchain platforms offer, including access to smart contracts, tokenization of data transmitted between IoT devices, immutable data, user transparency and decentralized access. Robonomics intends to make all of this accessible under a low and efficient cost structure that is comparable to the prices set by the much less robust cloud platforms on the market.

What are the major use cases of Robonomics? In my opinion, robotics and IoT need to get more traction than are at this moment. Do you see their fulfillment right away or within several years?

The technological trends suggest that humankind has only begun to scratch the surface regarding the extent to which IoT devices will be implemented and utilized. Therefore, Robonomics continues to see this as developing technology and intends to be at the forefront of enabling new usecases and IoT applications as they are continually developed in coming years.

IoT, Robotics, and Industry 4.0 are still only in their infancy stages, and this is only the beginning of Robonomics’ Web3 journey to ultimately enable millions of interoperable IoT devices in the Polkadot ecosystem, including many which have not yet been conceived but are already possible with the underlying technology of the Robonomics Network.

We see the full utilization and optimization of the Robonomics Network occurring years in the future, but our journey has already begun and there are already major usecases that have proven to be very valuable on top of the Robonomics Network.

• Digital Twins for Smart Leasing: a virtual representation that serves as the real-time digital counterpart of a physical object or process.
• Digital Passports for IoT Systems: Kusama network serves as a registry for global production distributors. There are recorded data about product manufacturing like the content of substances in the ground on farms or data about the final assembling of medical equipment.
• An Urban Sensor Network on the Volga River: in Tolyatti, they are already leveraging the power of IPFS and Substrate-based blockchain technologies by using an alarm network detecting high levels of air pollution without a commercial focus and being dependent on a government. The automatically-collected information on exceeding the level of air pollution will be used for a quick response of the mobile laboratory, which is already capable of conducting a detailed analysis of particles in the air. All data will be securely recorded in the Robonomics parachain to avoid any possibility of intervention in the measurement history and provide security from disabling the network during attacks of the main server. So there will be a trustable, immutable way of storing pollution data that can be used for science to create a better world for all protected against corrupted actors on both corporate and government levels.
• MerkleBot & DAO IPCI: MerkleBot is a platform that securely connects robotics systems within and across organizations to enable their Robot-as-a-Service business model using Robonomics Network for data storage. DAO IPCI is a platform which provides users the ability to allocate and manage environmental assets and liabilities through distributed ledgers stored in the blockchain using Robonomics Network.

What is the Robot-as-a-Service model?

The Robot-as-a-Service model implies connecting the robots to the cloud services to be able to track the actions performed by a robot, which in turn allows anyone who rents it to pay only for the actions performed by it. Such service is already being provided by one of the partners of Robonomics — MerkleBot.

Can you describe the meaning of the Robot Operating System (ROS)?

Robot Operating System is the most popular set of software libraries and tools to build robot applications. The market volume of the framework is steadily increasing, as ROS is claimed to be the middleware to the Internet of Things. That opens a wide horizon to Robonomics, as the network allows ROS-compatible devices to be connected to the distributed ledger and store all the data in a secure and immutable way.

What was the point of the Kusama on Mars? Do you have some other interesting experiments going on?

In 2020 as a proof-of-concept for Substrate-based parachain functionality, the demonstration of the Mars Rover controlled by Robonomics parachain was performed. During a hackathon, developers used the Kusama architecture to create a blockchain that could exist on Mars in isolation. Concurrently, other blockchains on Earth would gain the ability to communicate with the blockchain on Mars. This communication, it is proposed, would occur via transactions from other parachains using the cross-chain Message-Passing Protocol (XCMP).

The magnitude of this project requires thorough planning and an extended degree of technological autonomy, necessitating that robots exchange data and information freely, securely and consistently, along with a sufficient degree of flexibility and ability to learn from this information.

The point of this project is that it demonstrates the ability of Kusama to enable the finalization of data from Mars on Earth and communication with Mars through transactions from other parachains using XCMP. Such interplanetary communication and data finalization from autonomous devices using Kusama’s XCMP is the first of its kind and serves as proof regarding the significant accomplishments over interplanetary exploration and autonomous device communication that the Kusama network enables.

Besides Kusama on Mars, the Robonomics team has succeeded in many other experiments that have been enabled using the Robonomics Network. Some of the most interesting ones are:

Water Drones for Smart Water: The drone was able to transport itself to a specific location as specified in the terms of a smart contract agreement and perform water sampling and analysis to provide real-time analytics regarding the quality of drinking water sources. This water drone could be launched by anyone via a transaction on the Ethereum Network through the Robonomics Dapp.

The Air-Control System for Smart Cities: A measuring network installed in the city of Togliatti. The goal was to establish the bases for the implementation of a network of air quality monitoring in areas of special vulnerability (schools, playgrounds, nursing homes, hospitals, etc) that can provide information for local government to protect its citizens. All the information in this experiment was stored in a decentralized, open network, allowing citizens to obtain trusted data.

Get Weather on Fuji Mountain: Real-time weather reports on top of Fuji Mountain by using the Robonomics Dapp. An autonomous sensor can receive the signed message and send back the data, saved in IPFS. This is the beginning of the utilization of autonomous sensors to receive real-time, trusted data over a myriad of different applications like weather, water quality, air quality, etc.

Some other projects worth mentioning are autonomous painter “Gaka-Chu”, remote control of Spot: Robodog originally created by Boston Dynamics.

Robodog Spot by Boston Dynamics

How are you going to handle the huge amount of data from IoT devices flowing into your network? Blockchains are usually not really tailored for storing a big amount of data that are going to come from the device sensors and other sources. Do you have any idea of further collaboration this way?

To address the issue of dealing with huge data amounts Robonomics uses the IPFS layer, which can easily store large data. The hash of the data stored in IPFS goes to the Robonomics blockchain, this way this issue is eliminated.

You are going to secure a Parachain slot on Kusama. Why did you decide to go for the Kusama slot and not Polkadot?

We are competing for both Kusama and Polkadot. Kusama is a Polkadot canary network, which serves as a “mad little brother” for debugging the network.

Due to the early stage of Polkadot’s development, the Robonomics team has targeted Kusama as the public blockchain of choice to develop in the meantime. While Polkadot will ultimately provide the banking level of security required for DeFi and corporations, Kusama is the place for innovations to be explored and for early-stage applications to be developed. Kusama is a miracle made by Gavin Wood; a “testnet” with a real economy.

Among many other implications, access to the Kusama network enables Robonomics’ capacity to support ≥10,000 digital twins of IoT devices simultaneously, while a slot on the Polkadot Relay Chain boasts a bandwidth of one million free “spaces” for devices of all possible purposes.

This means that eventually, one million cyber-physical systems, whether it be a single drone or a smart factory, will become separate entities on the blockchain and will be able to autonomously collaborate by sharing data and participating in on-chain market economies of delivery services, environmental monitoring, and much more.

Are you going to incentivize your supporters in the Kusama Parachain auction in some way like lockdrop or crowdloan? Or do you already have funds that will make it possible to obtain the slot?

In order to obtain a Kusama parachain slot, Robonomics is utilizing the crowdloan strategy, whereby Robonomics supporters and investors are incentivized to ‘bond’, or loan in layman’s terms, their Kusama tokens in support of the Robonomics parachain auction.

How crowdloan works: By participating in the Robonomics crowdloan, you lock your KSM tokens for a period of 48 weeks to help Robonomics lease a parachain slot and obtain access to Kusama’s distributed computing power. In doing so, for every 1 KSM tokens that crowdloan participants contribute, they will, in turn, be rewarded up to 5 XRT (for participants who contribute before 35,000 KSM has been contributed), and 3.5 XRT for those who contribute after the 35,000 KSM contribution threshold is reached. In addition to these rewards, contributors will be entitled to an exclusive staking APR of up to 100% (the full 100% reward will be received after 1 year of staking).

By utilizing the crowdloan strategy, Robonomics is able to provide its community with rewards. These rewards may be considered very favorable because ultimately, those who contribute will receive their KSM tokens back after the 48-week lock-up period, and in addition, they will have earned either 5 XRT or 3.5 XRT per KSM, depending on if they contributed before or after the first 35,000 KSM contributions, as well as the exclusive staking APR of 100% after 1-year of staking.

For more information and access to the Robonomics crowdloan, please visit the dedicated crowdloan page.

After 48 weeks, for which the slot is leased, are you going to move from Kusama to Polkadot?

Yes, after this period of development on Kusama, given that we meet our expected development goals and security audits of course, Robonomics aims to transition to the full-scale applications of the Robonomics Network on Polkadot. In doing so, we will seek to acquire a Polkadot Relay Chain slot, which will fully enable the development of an ecosystem of interconnected IoT parachains, with the underlying security, consensus mechanisms, and cross-chain interoperability of the main Polkadot Relay Chain.

Why did you choose to start your own Relay chain? Is it worthy of your utilization?

Polkadot’s multi-blockchain technology is valued not only by the DeFi projects, which are currently rightfully considered to be the main interested body but also by blockchain developers who work in the field of IoT. Such a move to a multi-blockchain ecosystem solves two problems that IoT devices are faced with — scalability and security. Terabytes of data generated by IoT devices will finally get a chance to be properly secure.

Thus, we strongly believe that the application of IoT technologies in the Polkadot ecosystem is one of the best use-cases of Polkadot’s superior security and scalability, and should not be limited to individual use cases on top of a singular parachain. Rather, Robonomics seeks to enable the development and deployment of any and all types of IoT applications under the shared security and scalability of the Polkadot ecosystem. Through the Robonomics relay chain, anyone will have easily affordable access to building unique L1-esque applications that seamlessly connect to the other applications within Robonomics Network, and the entire Polkadot ecosystem as well.

When having your own Robonomics Relay chain, what types of projects do you expect to be part of your Parachains? Is it going to be IoT projects? What will be the economic model for the Robonomics Relay chain then — leasing Parachain slots for 2 years as in Polkadot and Kusama? Or some different one?

Here are 5 specific parachains Robonomics plans to create in the next 2 years:

1. RWS parachain versa cloud connections for IoT
2. Robot-as-a-Service parachain with the functionality associated with robots’ economy
3. Distributed Sky parachain to control the traffic of drones.
4. DAO IPCI parachain to compensates for the damage to the nature of all processes passing through the Robonomics network.
5. Smart leasing parachain to provide a mechanism for tokenizing robots’ labor

They will be united under the management of the Robonomics Relay Chain and connected to the Polkadot network. XRT will be responsible for “gas fees” in all parachains related to Robonomics Relay Chain.

Recommended links:

Our recent article: Robonomics Network: the first economy based on robotics

Official webpages of the project: https://robonomics.network/

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