Terminology

Robot: We like to think of Robots as autonomous machines that are programmed to carry out a specific operation. Most often this is a set of sensors connected to one or more processing units with a network connection. The DroneDeploy Robotics Portal however supports connecting even a single sensor which becomes part of a larger robotic cloud operation.

Robot Profile: The Robotics Portal uses Robot Profiles to define the shared configuration of Dashboards, Agent Settings, Commands, Buttons, Data Storage Streams and Provisioning. Changes published in a Robot Profile will be applied automatically to all robots which share that Profile. When adding a new robot you must select a Robot Profile.

Stream: The Robotics Portal uses the word Stream as related to background telemetry data that is captured and stored for analytics or passive monitoring purposes (see also Streaming Data).

Teleoperation: A live bidirectional connection is opened via the client to the robot to share information such as telemetry, control commands and video. Technically this is also a Stream but Teleoperation is specifically designed for very high frequency and low latency data streaming (see also Streaming Data).

Local Location: The location of the robot relative to its local environment. Often this form of navigation is calculated by SLAM. Ideally multiple robots as part of a Robot Automation project share a common model for local environment and therefore know their location relative to each other, but this is not required.

Global Location: The location of the robot in terms of Latitude, Longitude and Altitude. Most often Global location is determined by an onboard GPS. Any robot with a Global Location therefore knows it's position relative to other robots.

Operations: An operation involves one or more robots that are involved in an overall business objective. The user of the platform decides how big the commercial and geographic scope of an operation is. The DroneDeploy Robotics Portal provides interfaces for business users to monitor and interact with live operations. An example might be a set of drones working together on a single search and rescue operation, or another might be a set of rovers delivering packages in a specific city.