Show HN: Decentralized robots (and things) orchestration system

hannesfur | 51 points

This looks super cool, Ive been working in a similar space for some time. I work with open-rmf which is semi-decentralized and provides tools for task and traffic deconfliction (we don't handle the network layer at all). Excited to see more similar software coming up.

accurrent | 8 minutes ago

Great idea combining batman with libp2p! You guys have the heart in the right place :-).

Currently, your project seems to be an opinionated wrapper ontop of libp2p. For this to become a proper distributed toolkit you lack an abstraction to for apps to collaborate over shared state (incl. convergence after partition). Come up with a good abstraction for that, and make it work p2p (e.g. delta state based CRDTs, or op-based CRDTs based on a replicated log; event sourcing ..). Tangentially related, a consensus abstraction might also be handy for some applications.

Also check out [iroh](https://github.com/n0-computer/iroh) as a potential awesome replacement for p2p; as well as [Actyx](https://github.com/Actyx/Actyx) as an inspiration of similar (sadly failed) project using rust-libp2p.

Oh, and you might want to give your docs a grammar review.

Kudos for showing!

wngr | 5 hours ago

Read the architecture document here.[1]

The usual problems with these things are discovery and security. Discovery is done via local WiFi broadcast. Not clear how security is done. How do you allow ad-hoc networking yet disallow hostile actors from connecting?

[1] https://docs.p2p.industries/concepts/architecture/

Animats | 3 hours ago

Very fun. Is this primarily a passion project or are you hoping to get corporate sponsorship & adoption?

Can you provide some insight as to why this would be preferred over an orchestration server? In this context - Would a 'mothership'/Wheel-and-spoke drone responsible for controlling the rest of the hive be considered an orchestration server?

This isn't my area of expertise but I think "Hive mind drones" tickles every engineer.

NotAnOtter | 7 hours ago

This is awesome stuff, I'm going to look into getting this running my Pis this weekend. How hard would it be to add in custom services? I like to play with decentralized algorithms such as Size Estimation and Clock Synchronization (https://jasonfantl.com/) and have always wanted to get them running on real hardware.

jfantl | 5 hours ago

I am neophyte in this realm, but I like what I am seeing so far. Since I want to get into robotics for my own fun, I will be looking at it more closely this weekend:D

iugtmkbdfil834 | 7 hours ago

It's not clear what the hardware requirements for a system that can run this would be. Raspberry Pi is mentioned but it seems like an actual OS (not ESP32 for example) is a requirement.

matthewfcarlson | 4 hours ago

I've been thinking about building a little tiny SLAM robot to have something to drive around the house when I'm out of town (I don't want always on cameras everywhere but having a camera that can move around sounds useful). The ideas here are awesome and I'm looking forward to the tutorials being more fleshed out.

matthewfcarlson | 8 hours ago

> We’d love to hear your thoughts! :)

Have you ever played any of the Horizon (Zero Dawn/Forbidden West) games? :)

Jokes aside, it looks pretty cool. What kind of hardware have you tested it with so far? Is this using WiFi only?

diggan | 7 hours ago

this is so cool, congrats on launching. what kind of biz model are you guys going after?

rgbrgb | 4 hours ago