Glossary

A

Account (on Blockchain)

a conjunction of a public-private keypair, the public part of which is the user’s public address, and the private part is the secret key for accessing the control of this address.

Auction (of Parachains)

mechanism of leasing slots for parachains in the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems; a parachain have win a candle auction to get a slot.

Autonomous Agent

a computational system that receives sensory data from its environment and decides how to respond to external stimuli in order to achieve its goals.

AIRA

or Autonomous Intelligent Robot Agent — a software, developed by Robonomics team in 2015, that implements the standard of economic human-machine and machine-machine interaction through an intellectual liability contract.

B

Blockchain

in a broad sense, a distributed network that uses cryptography to allow a group of participants to trustlessly come to consensus on the changing state of a system.

Blockchain Explorer

an application that allows to explore the different blocks, transactions and addresses on a blockchain (e.g. Etherscan, Subscan).

Blueprint (Hass)

a pre-made automation logic that can be easily added to a Home Assistant instance.

Bridge

a technology and methods by which two economically sovereign and technologically diverse chains to communicate with each other.

C

Coase (XRT)

or Cs — a millionth share of one XRT token, 1 XRT = 1 000 000 Cs; named after Ronald Coase, a British economist, one of the founders of institutional economics, a laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Collator

a node that maintains a parachain by collecting parachain transactions and producing state transition proofs for the validators.

Consensus

a process in which nodes of a blockchain network reach agreement about the present state of the data in the network (e.g. Proof-of-Work, Proof-of-Stake).

Crowdloan

a crowdfunding campaign of collecting tokens to make a bid on the slots auction in the Polkadot / Kusama ecosystem.

Cybernetics

the study of control and communication in the animal and the machine, according definition of N. Wiener.

Cyber-Physical System

or CPS — a strong unification and mutual integration of multiple computational, networking, and physical processes.

D

DAO

a collectively-owned, blockchain-governed organization, in which resource management is carried out in accordance with a pre-agreed and formalized set of rules, the enforcement of which is performed automatically.

Datalog (Function)

a Robonomics parachain function, that stores device data on the blockchain.

Dapp

or decentralized application — an application that runs as part of a distributed network and provides access its functions in a user-friendly way.

Decentralized Cloud

a cloud computing service based on a decentralized peer-to-peer network that users can join either to use services or to provide their resources such as for computing, networking, storage, etc.

Digital Twin

a digital version of real equipment that copies its technical characteristics and historical data.

E

Edge-system

an IoT device that acts as a link between locally accessible embedded systems and the global network, typically supporting communication protocols and transmitting telemetry and control signals.

Embedded System

an IoT device with limited computing and communication resources that provides basic functions (sensors, actuators, buttons) at the lowest level, usually without user interfaces.

Ethereum

a decentralized open-source blockchain system that works as a platform for numerous other cryptocurrencies, as well as for the execution of decentralized smart contracts.

Ethereum Upgrade

previously known as Ethereum 2.0 or Eth2 — a upgrades of Ethereum protocol that should make the network more scalable, secure and sustainable; for these purposes, it is proposed to change the consensus to Proof-of-Stake and add a sharding mechanism to increase network capacity.

Exodus

process of transfer XRT tokens from Ethereum network to the Robonomics parachain.

Extrinsic

a function on the Polkadot and Kusama network, that can trigger network state transitions from outside of the state.

G

Glushkov (XRT)

or Gk — a thousandth of one XRT token, 1 XRT = 1 000 Gk; named after Victor Glushkov, a Soviet mathematician, one of the founders of information technology and cybernetics in the Soviet Union.

H

Home Assistant

or Hass — an open source control system software, designed to be a central hub for smart devices.

HRMP

or Horizontal Relay-routed Message Passing — a secure message passing between parachains, that stores all messages in the Relay Chain storage before sending it to parachains.

HMI

or Human-Machine Interface — a user interface or dashboard that connects the user to a machine, system, or device.

I

Industry 4.0

or the Fourth Industrial Revolution — the ongoing automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices, using modern smart technology.

IPFS

or InterPlanetary File System — a peer-to-peer software for storing and sharing data in a distributed file system.

IoT

or Internet of Things — a connection to a global network of billions of devices, capable of collecting data and integrated into the environment.

IoT Gateway

an edge-system, that aggregates and transmits data from IoT devices to network and vice versa; often these devices are a more complex version of the WiFi router.

IoT Provider

an external service that provides IoT users with remote access to data and analytics, as well as control of smart devices over the Internet.

IoT Subscription

Robonomics parachain feature, that allows to use the all functions of the parachain for a certain period without fee.

K

KSM

a native token for Kusama network.

Kusama

the “canary network” for Polkadot that consists of an early-release, unaudited version of the Polkadot software.

L

Launch (Function)

a Robonomics parachain function that starts or stops a device by sending a command through the blockchain.

Lease Period

an amount of time that a parachain can connect to the Relay Chain.

Libp2p

an open-source library for creating encrypted peer-to-peer networks.

Lights-out Factory

or Smart Factory — a factory that is fully automated and requires no human presence on-site.

Lighthouse

a smart contract, in the robot economy concept, which performs a transaction when the Provider establishes a market match between the Promisor and the Promisee.

Liability

a smart contract, made by cyber-physical systems with each other or with humans, to execute a task for payment.

Liability Market

a platform, in the robot economy concept, in charge of matching offers and demands among the nodes of the system.

M

MQTT

or Message Queuing Telemetry Transport — a publish-subscribe protocol designed for low-bandwidth, high latency, unreliable networks for operating high volumes of IoT devices messages.

MQTT Broker

a service that receives all the messages from the MQTT clients and then routes the messages to the appropriate subscribing clients.

N

NFT

or Non-Fungible Token — a token that cannot be interchangeable and indistinguishable from other tokens which allow the tokenization of unique items and provide exclusive ownership for those tokens.

Node (of Robonomics)

a Substrate-based or Ethereum-based blockchain module with Robonomics extensions for connecting to Robonomics Network.

O

On-chain Governance

a process of determining what changes to the network are permissible, such as modifications to code or movement of funds, that exists in the network itself and can directly changes it.

P

Pallet

a Substrate module written in Rust that bundles specific logic or algorithm for runtime of Substrate-based blockchain.

Parachain

a custom, application-specific data structure (usually, a blockchain) that is integrated to the Relay Chain and can be validated by the validators.

Parathread

a parachain without a slot that can temporarily participate (on a block by block basis with a fee) in the Relay Chain security.

Polkadot

a heterogeneous, multi-chain network allowing various blockchains of different characteristics to perform arbitrary, cross-chain communication under shared security.

Polkadot/Substrate Portal

a basic Substrate UI for interacting with a Polkadot, Kusama and others Substrate network.

Proposal (on Polkadot / Kusama)

a potential function call to be voted on in a Polkadot, Kusama or parachains referendum.

Proof-of-Work

a consensus mechanism in which, in order to reach agreement, network participants are required to perform computational work.

Proof-of-Stake

a consensus mechanism in which, in order to reach agreement, network participants are required to stake capital of the associated cryptocurrency that acts as collateral.

Promisee

a node that places an order for execution of a task in the robot economy concept.

Promisor

a node that agrees to execute a task for payment in the robot economy concept.

Provider (Robonomics)

a node, in the robot economy concept, that monitors the messages of the Liability Market and matches an offer and a demand for a small fee.

R

Referendum (on Polkadot / Kusama)

a part of on-chain governance, vote on whether or not a proposal should be accepted by the network users.

Relay Chain

the main chain that coordinates consensus of Polkadot / Kusama and communication between parachains.

Robofirm

an organization in which the entire business process cycle is fully automated and does not require human participation.

Rococo

the testnet for testing parachains on Kusama

robonomics-interface

a Python library which specializes in interfacing with Robonomics to convenient programming.

Robonomics on Ethereum

a version of Robonomics Network running on top of Ethereum, released in 2018.

Robot Economy

an economic system in which devices act as independent agents capable of performing key economic activities previously unique to humans.

Robot-as-a-Service

or RaaS — a business model where companies rent their robotics equipment to clients and customers for short-term or long-term use.

ROS

or Robot Operating System — a framework for robot software development, that provides services designed for a heterogeneous computer cluster such as hardware abstraction, low-level device control, implementation of commonly used functionality, message-passing between processes, and package management.

ROS 2

an updated and rebuilt version of Robot Operating System with new features, such as support for multi-robot and small embedded systems, and integration with real-time.

ROS 2 Middleware

or RMW — a protocol that provides standard ROS 2 features such as discovery, serialization, and transportation; ROS 2 supports multiple middleware implementations that can chosen to best suit for project requirements.

RWS

or Robonomics Web Services — decentralized infrastructure services for robotics and IoT that lets connect devices easily and interact with user applications, cloud services, and other devices securely; it has its own token also called RWS, witch gives lifetime IoT subscription in Robonomics parachain.

Runtime

a state transition function of a blockchain which defines a valid algorithm for determining the state of the next block given the previous state.

S

Seed Phrase

a human-readable private key created as a sequence of random words and required to get access to blockchain address and its tokens.

Shared Security

the security model of Polkadot / Kusama whereby all chains are equally secured by placing proofs of the validity of parachain blocks into the Relay Chain such that a potential attacker would need to attack the entire system.

SLS Gateway

an open source IoT gateway for Zigbee devices based on the ESP32 microcontroller developed by Smart Logic System.

Slot (of Parachain)

a scarce resource in Polkadot / Kusama ecosystem, that allows parachain to be connected to the Relay Chain without fee for each block.

Smart Leasing

a Robot-as-a-Service model variant, in which rent is paid not by time, but for specific operations and their number.

Smart Contract

a program or algorithm stored on a blockchain that run automatically when predetermined conditions are met.

SSH

or Secure Shell — a network protocol for operating network services securely over an unsecured network, that uses public-key cryptography to authenticate the remote computer.

Staking

the part of the Proof-of-Stake consensus, an act of bonding tokens by depositing them as collateral for a chance to produce a valid block and obtain a reward.

Substrate

a modular framework for building blockchains like Polkadot and Kusama.

T

Treasury

a pot of funds collected through a portion of block production rewards, transaction fees, staking, etc., that can be spent by making a spending proposal; if the Treasury ends a spend period without spending all of its funds, it suffers a burn of a percentage of the funds.

Transaction Costs

the cost of collecting and processing information due to the bounded rationality of economic agents and complexity of the processes.

V

Validator

a node that secures the Relay Chain by staking its tokens, validating proofs from collators on parachains and voting on consensus along with other validators.

W

Web3

an idea for a new iteration of the Web which incorporates concepts such as decentralization, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics.

Wiener (XRT)

or Wn — a billionth share of one XRT token, 1 XRT = 1 000 000 000 Wn; named after Norbert Wiener, an American mathematician, one of the founders of cybernetics and the theory of artificial intelligence.

X

XCM

or Cross-Consensus Message Format — a format of messaging between different blockchain systems in Polkadot / Kusama.

XRT

a native token for Robonomics Network, that exists independently on the Ethereum and Kusama networks.

Y

Yggdrasil

an overlay network implementation of a fully end-to-end encrypted routing scheme for mesh networks.

Z

Zigbee

a wireless communication protocol, very commonly used for connecting smart devices because of low power consumption, easability and flexibility of configuration, and support of self-organizing and self-recovering network topology.

Zigbee Adapter

a device that transfers data between the Zigbee network and another network (i.e. Wi-Fi) for controlling Zigbee devices.

Zigbee2MQTT

a software that allows connecting Zigbee to MQTT networks by translating messages from the one network to another.