RoSeMAN

Robonomics Sensors Measure Analytics and Archive Node -- the indexer and analytics backend for sensors.social. RoSeMAN watches the Robonomics parachain for sensor datalogs, fetches measurement data from IPFS, and serves it via REST API and socket.io.

Architecture

RoSeMAN is the bridge between on-chain sensor datalogs and the user-facing sensors map. Here is the full Robonomics sensors data pipeline:

[1] User activates RWS subscription via Robonomics dApp

[2] Altruist (ESP32) --> signed extrinsic --> Robonomics Parachain
[3] Altruist (ESP32) --> signed msg HTTP:65 --> Sensors Connectivity Provider
[4] Connectivity validates (ED25519 + RWS subscription)
[5] Connectivity pins data to IPFS, writes hash as datalog to Parachain

[6] RoSeMAN reads chain blocks, finds datalog events     <-- starts here
[7] RoSeMAN fetches sensor data from IPFS --> MongoDB
[8] sensors.social / dApp requests historical data
[9] RoSeMAN serves measurements via REST API + socket.io

RoSeMAN handles steps 6-9: indexing chain events, fetching IPFS data, storing measurements, and serving them to frontends.

• Steps 1-5 (device → chain): see altruist-firmware and sensors-connectivity
• Steps 8-9 (frontend): see sensors.social

How It Works

Indexer connects to a Substrate-based chain (Robonomics on Kusama or Polkadot) and subscribes to new blocks. It filters extrinsics for datalog calls from whitelisted SS58 addresses listed in config/agents.json.

IPFS fetch takes the data hash from each datalog record and retrieves the payload from HTTP IPFS gateways. Gateways are load-balanced by success rate, with up to 10 retries per hash.

Two data formats are supported: sensor measurements (multi-sensor batches with PM, temperature, humidity, etc.) and messages (single geo+timestamp entries).

Real-time updates are pushed to connected clients via socket.io update event whenever new measurements are stored.

Quick Start with Docker

Required: Docker must be installed.

mkdir config
curl -o ./config/agents.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/airalab/RoSeMAN/master/config/agents.template.json
curl -o ./config/config.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/airalab/RoSeMAN/master/config/config.template.json

Edit config/agents.json to whitelist the parachain addresses you want to index.

Create a docker-compose.yml file:

version: "3.8"
services:
  app:
    container_name: roseman_app
    image: vol4/roseman
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    volumes:
      - ./config:/app/config
    depends_on:
      - mongo

  mongo:
    container_name: mongo
    image: mongo

docker compose up -d

Server runs at http://127.0.0.1:3000

Running with Node.js

Requires MongoDB running separately.

git clone https://github.com/airalab/RoSeMAN.git
cd RoSeMAN
cp config/config.template.json config/config.json
cp config/agents.template.json config/agents.json

Edit config/agents.json to set whitelisted addresses. Edit config/config.json to configure MongoDB connection if needed.

yarn install
yarn build
yarn start

Server runs at http://127.0.0.1:3000

Configuration

Chain Selection

Chain is configured in src/indexer/index.js via chain() calls. Each call specifies the RPC endpoint, chain name, extrinsic/event filters, and address lists.

Example for Robonomics on Polkadot:

chain(
  config.CHAIN_API_POLKADOT,
  CHAIN_NAME.POLKADOT,
  start,
  {
    extrinsic: ["datalog", "rws", "digitalTwin/setSource"],
    event: ["datalog/NewRecord", "digitalTwin/TopicChanged"],
  },
  {
    rws: [rwsOwner, sensors, dtwin],
    datalog: [sensors],
    "digitalTwin/setSource": [dtwin],
  },
  async (block) => {
    await LastBlock.updateOne(
      { chain: CHAIN_NAME.POLKADOT },
      { block: block }
    ).exec();
    rosemanBlockRead.set({ chain: "robonomics" }, block);
  }
);

To switch chains, comment out the chain() call you don't need and restart the indexer.

Agent Whitelist

config/agents.json contains the list of SS58 addresses whose datalogs will be indexed. Only data from these addresses is processed; everything else is ignored.

IPFS Gateways

IPFS data is fetched via HTTP gateways (ipfs.io, gateway.ipfs.io). Gateways are selected based on success rate and each fetch is retried up to 10 times.

API Reference

Endpoint	Description
GET /api/sensor/last	Latest measurement for a sensor
GET /api/sensor/history	Historical measurements
GET /api/sensor/csv	Export measurements as CSV
GET /api/v2/sensor/list	List all known sensors
socket.io "update"	Real-time push on new measurements

Connect this service to sensors.social or the sensors map frontend.

Bug Reports

https://github.com/airalab/RoSeMAN/issues

Links

• Robonomics Wiki
• sensors.social
• Sensors Map Frontend