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swarm-house/docs/00-glossary.md
eSlider df78a7c5db docs: SSH-based bulk sync and peer queries, spatial extension
Replace object-store replication with rsync over persistent multiplexed
SSH (ed25519, pinned known_hosts, forced commands as the only remote
API); demote GraphQL to the ground integration standard. Add DuckDB
spatial extension for separation audits, perimeter predicates and
trajectory analysis in the local planar frame.
2026-07-08 13:21:47 +01:00

5.4 KiB

00 — Glossary

Terms and abbreviations used throughout this proposal.

Data & storage

Term Meaning
Parquet Columnar file format; compresses time series extremely well (ZSTD + delta encoding), supports predicate pushdown
Hive partitioning Directory layout key=value/… understood by most engines; enables partition pruning (only relevant directories are read)
DuckDB In-process analytical SQL engine; queries Parquet globs directly, no server to operate
ZSTD Zstandard compression; the default codec for all Parquet files here
DWH Data warehouse — here: the on-prem ground store holding every flight ever flown
Hot / warm / cold tiers Storage floors ordered by access latency and retention: in-memory window → local NVMe → ground warehouse
Sealing Compacting many small streamed Parquet files into one final file per partition once a time window closes
UUIDv7 Time-ordered UUID; sortable by creation time, used as the canonical flight identifier
DuckDB spatial Extension adding a GEOMETRY type and ST_* functions; used for separation audits, perimeter predicates, and trajectory analysis in the local planar frame
Schema registry Versioned catalog of dataset schemas so producers and consumers can evolve independently
ETL Extract, transform, load — the pipelines that move and reshape data between tiers

Swarm & robotics

Term Meaning
UAV / UGV / USV / UUV Unmanned aerial / ground / surface / underwater vehicle
Swarm Group of autonomous vehicles coordinating without a central controller
Sustainable pulsing Swarm ability to repeatedly engage a target area from multiple directions and self-reorganize as conditions evolve
Ubiquitous sensing The swarm acting as one distributed sensor, fusing local observations into shared situational awareness ("top sight")
Man-in-the-loop A human supervises intent and boundaries but does not steer individual vehicles
GPS-denied Operating without satellite positioning; position comes from visual odometry and relative localization
Visual odometry Estimating a vehicle's motion from its own camera stream
ROS 2 Robot Operating System 2 — the de-facto middleware for robotics software; nodes exchange typed messages over topics
DDS Data Distribution Service — the default ROS 2 transport middleware
Zenoh Pub/sub + query protocol designed for constrained, dynamic networks; official ROS 2 RMW implementation exists
YOLO-like detector Family of single-pass object-detection models; the on-board video service runs one of them, weights are swappable
IMU Inertial measurement unit — accelerometer + gyroscope (+ magnetometer)
LiDAR Laser-based distance sensing
RSSI Received signal strength indicator; Wi-Fi signal strength, usable as a coarse relative-positioning signal
C2 Command and control — the narrow channel that delivers mission intent to the swarm

Infrastructure & delivery

Term Meaning
Air-gapped No route to the internet, physically or logically
On-prem Runs on owned hardware; no public cloud involvement
Zero trust No implicit trust from network position; every peer authenticates with pre-provisioned credentials
mTLS Mutual TLS — both sides of a connection present certificates
ed25519 Modern elliptic-curve signature scheme; the SSH key type provisioned per device and per operation
Forced command command="…" restriction in authorized_keys: the key can execute exactly one predefined operation — the key is the API
ControlMaster SSH connection multiplexing: one persistent authenticated session carries many transfers/commands
PKI Public key infrastructure — the certificate authority hierarchy behind mTLS
WireGuard Lightweight encrypted tunnel protocol; basis for the swarm mesh overlay
Ad-hoc mesh Wireless network formed directly between peers, no fixed infrastructure
Docker Compose Declarative multi-container runtime; the only orchestrator on board a drone
k3s Lightweight Kubernetes distribution; used on the ground only
Dev Container Reproducible containerized development environment definition
MinIO S3-compatible object store; runs on-board for derived data and on the ground as the warehouse backend
Registry mirror Local copy of a container registry inside the air gap; drones pull images from it
OTA Over-the-air update — delivered before a mission while docked, never mid-flight
Fleet release manifest A versioned lockfile pinning every artifact (image digests, model weights, schemas, configs) that defines one fleet version
SemVer Semantic versioning (MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH) applied to every artifact and to the fleet manifest itself
Trivy Open-source scanner for container images and dependencies
SonarQube Static code-quality and security analysis platform
nvidia-container-toolkit Runtime hook exposing GPUs to containers; needed for on-board inference
HIL Hardware-in-the-loop testing — real flight hardware wired into a simulated environment
CRDT Conflict-free replicated data type; merges concurrent updates without coordination