Questions about RoboPay.
What is RoboPay?
RoboPay is the payment layer for machines and AI agents in the physical world. A machine gets paid automatically when it proves it did the job, for example when a delivery car arrives.
How does a delivery robot get paid?
The buyer locks 0.2 SOL in an escrow on Solana. The car drives to the box and scans its QR code. It then signs the delivery on-chain, and the escrow releases the money to the car’s owner.
Why can’t robots use banks or cards?
A robot has no bank account, cards are made for people, and a payment alone is not proof that the parcel arrived. RoboPay ties the payment to proof of delivery.
How does RoboPay prove a delivery?
Two layers. The QR handover works on the car today. A letterbox co-signature with a weight sensor is the planned next step and closes the gap of relayed codes. Our research also tests GPS arrival detection as a trigger.
Which technology does RoboPay use?
Solana for escrow payments and peaq for the car’s verifiable Machine-NFT identity.
Is RoboPay live?
It runs on real hardware as a working prototype: a PiCar-X delivery car and a letterbox prototype. Payouts that follow the Machine-NFT owner are built and in testing.
Who builds RoboPay?
A student research group, the Machine Economy Lab at HTW Berlin: Kevin Ehrentraut, Xinyan Liu and Yashdeep Singh, supervised by Prof. Dr. Alexandra Mikityuk. We are working toward a startup.