Concepts

This page is the conceptual map. Read it once before the API reference and the rest of the docs will fit together quickly.

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The mesh

ResQ runs as a decentralized mesh, not a hub-and-spoke cloud. Drones, ground units, and operator stations form a peer network that keeps operating when upstream infrastructure is down or unreachable.

• Nodes communicate over local-first transports (mesh radio, LTE, Wi-Fi) and reconcile with the cloud opportunistically.
• The Coordination API is designed to keep accepting telemetry and serving live state when its upstream dependencies are degraded.
• There is no single point of failure. If a coordinator drops, peer nodes continue to share telemetry and queue work.

You’ll see this surface in the API as 503 Service Unavailable for some routes during partial outages — see Errors for retry guidance.

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Evidence and the chain

Every consequential action in a mission produces evidence:

1. Drones capture sensor frames, video, and structured telemetry.
2. Evidence files are pinned to IPFS and referenced by their CID (content-addressed identifier).
3. CIDs are anchored on Solana, producing a tamper-evident chain.
4. The Infrastructure API exposes both halves: /evidence for the IPFS payload, /blockchain/* for the on-chain anchors.

This makes after-action review and chain-of-custody review possible without trusting any single party — anyone with the CID and chain reference can verify the bytes.

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Human-in-the-loop missions

ResQ’s autonomous flows are HITL-gated. The platform implements EU AI Act Article 14 human oversight: an authorized operator must approve high-risk actions before the system commits. Mission approval is exposed via the Coordination API:

• GET /admin/missions/pending — actions awaiting approval
• POST /admin/missions/approve — green-light a pending mission
• POST /admin/missions/reject — block and record the reason

Approval requires the missions.approve operator scope. Calls without it return 403 — see Errors.

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Airspace and permits

For deliveries and autonomous flight, ResQ uses an on-chain airspace registry on Solana. The Infrastructure API’s /solana endpoints record permits, delivery events, and registry queries. The dispatcher refuses flight plans that fall outside permitted airspace; this gate sits in front of mission approval, not after it.

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Telemetry and live events

Two flows carry real-time data:

• Ingestion: drone fleets push telemetry batches to POST /fleet/telemetry on the Coordination API. Batches are buffered on the edge and retried — telemetry never silently drops.
• Subscription: clients consume live state via Server-Sent Events at /events and Prometheus scrapes at /metrics (Coordination API).

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Operator identity and scopes

Operators authenticate with username + password at POST /login and receive a short-lived JWT (see Authentication). The token carries the operator’s scopes — fine-grained permissions like missions.approve, evidence.write, or airspace.admin. A request that succeeds in authentication but lacks the required scope returns 403. Surface this to the operator and do not retry; it requires an administrator action.

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Fault injection and simulation

The Coordination API exposes Simulation endpoints for fault injection, and the SDKs ship simulation harnesses. The intent is to exercise the mesh’s degraded-mode behavior in test before depending on it in production. Use it during integration tests, not in live operations.

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What’s where

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