Robotics
Edge to autonomous
Machines that move, under keys that stay yours.
A robot is a node: its own identity, its own policy, its own ledger. Its sensors and actuators sit behind leaves that enforce interlocks with no network at all. Fleets of robots, vehicles and autonomous machines are operated like any other Furcate site, and stopped by the operator's key and nobody else's.
01
The robot as a node
Complete by itself.
Identity, policy and a record on the machine that acts.
Onboard computers run Furcate as nodes with a hardware root of trust. Motor controllers, safety I/O and sensors sit behind leaves that sign what they measure and check every order they carry out.
- 01
ROS 2, Zenoh and DDS
Robot middleware bridged onto the site bus, with readings signed and stated by rung like any other device.
- 02
Interlocks at the actuator
Limits, exclusions and dead-man timers enforced by the leaf that drives the output, holding when the robot loses its link.
- 03
Signed stop
halt and power_off orders honoured by the robot and its leaves offline, refusable by nothing.
- 04
Model provenance
Every perception or planning result carries the model's hash, so behaviour can be traced to what produced it.
02
Control at every tier
Each loop closes where it lives.
No network round trip inside a control loop.
A machine's work is split by how fast it must happen. The fastest loops close on the leaf beside the motor or the sensor; slower and wider decisions move up the chain. No loop waits on a link, so a lost connection can slow a mission but never a reflex.
| Tier | In a machine |
|---|---|
| Furcate Leaf | real-time control and local safety: watchdog, emergency stop, interlocks, safe states |
| Furcate Node | machine control, protocol adapters, robot middleware |
| Furcate Hub | perception and planning |
| Servers and Praecise Cloud | fleet missions, maps, training |
- 01
Signed commands
Every command a machine carries out is a signed order with a counter and an expiry, checked again by the tier that executes it.
- 02
Agents under a person's delegation
An agent acts only within limits a person delegated with a passkey, and the machine checks that delegation, not the agent's word.
Status
Furcate Leaf, Node and Hub are available soon. Until then, a robot's onboard computer runs Furcate as a node.
03
A leaf that will not be talked into it
The first robotics demo, step by step.
Signed goals in, its own limits always, and a safe stop when the link goes.
A gateway node and a leaf node share one actuator between them. The leaf does the moving and the refusing; the gateway only asks.
Demo · a leaf node drives an actuator
- 01
A goal, sent and signed
The gateway node sends the leaf a goal with a signature, a counter and an expiry. The leaf checks all three before anything moves.
- 02
The leaf moves within its limits
The leaf node drives the actuator itself and closes the loop on its own, inside the limits its interlock table allows. No network round trip sits inside that loop.
- 03
An unauthorised command, refused
A command with no valid grant reaches the leaf. It is refused, the status light shows it, and the refusal is recorded like any other decision.
- 04
Link lost, safe stop
The link to the gateway drops. The dead-man timer runs out and the leaf brings the actuator to its declared safe state, with nothing above it present.
Safety
Furcate's interlocks and signed orders are security controls. They do not replace a certified functional-safety system, and Praecise does not present them as one.