The problem RoboPay solves

RoboPay: The ZK Payment Layer for Multi-Vendor Robot Fleets

The Problem

Modern warehouses rely on robots from multiple vendors:

• Pickers from one company
• Carriers from another
• Charging stations from a third

But these systems often don’t communicate with each other.

When a picker robot needs a carrier from another vendor, a human operator or custom integration has to coordinate the handoff, verify completion, and handle payment.

This creates a costly middle layer that also needs access to sensitive warehouse information — including inventory, shipments, robot locations, and floor layouts.

Our Solution

RoboPay removes the middleman.

Each robot receives its own on-chain wallet on HSK Chain, allowing autonomous robots from different vendors to interact, transact, and coordinate directly.

With RoboPay, robots can:

🤖 Take jobs & get paid
Robots can accept tasks directly and receive payment automatically once the work is cryptographically verified.

🤝 Hire other robots
A picker can hire a carrier from another vendor's fleet using robot-to-robot payments, with funds held in escrow until delivery is proven.

🔋 Pay for resources
Robots can purchase services directly — for example, a low-battery robot can pay a charging dock without human intervention.

Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Private Verification

The key challenge is proving that a job was completed without exposing sensitive warehouse data.

RoboPay uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to verify that a delivery matches the agreed job without revealing:

• Item or SKU information
• Tote IDs
• Inventory details
• Robot locations
• Warehouse layout

Instead, only cryptographic commitments and the proof are made public.

Once the proof verifies, the smart contract automatically releases the escrowed payment.

How It Works

1. Job Created
A robot posts a task and payment on HSK Chain.

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2. Robot-to-Robot Hiring
Another vendor's robot accepts the job and payment is placed in escrow.

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3. Work Completed
The robots perform the task off-chain.

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4. Proof Generated
The packing station and robot generate a ZK proof that the agreed delivery was completed correctly.

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5. Automatic Settlement
The smart contract verifies the proof and releases payment automatically.

The Result

No central broker. No vendor-to-vendor trust. No unnecessary data exposure.

RoboPay creates a common economic and trust layer that allows robots from different vendors to discover, hire, pay, and verify each other autonomously.

RoboPay: Robots hiring robots, paying robots, and proving their work — without revealing the warehouse.

Challenges we ran into

Challenges We Ran Into

One of our biggest challenges was turning the idea of trustless robot-to-robot transactions into a working prototype within a limited timeframe. We had to coordinate several components, including on-chain wallets, payments, escrow logic, work verification, and the zero-knowledge proof workflow, while ensuring that the different parts could communicate correctly.

We also encountered a rate limit with the HSK Chain faucet, which made it difficult to obtain enough test tokens for repeated transactions and testing. This forced us to carefully manage our available funds and prioritize the most important test cases.

Another major hurdle was debugging and reviewing the smart contract and application code. Small issues in transaction handling, verification logic, and interactions between components could prevent the entire workflow from functioning. We addressed this by testing each component independently, reviewing the code as a team, and progressively integrating the different pieces.

Finally, we faced time constraints and technical difficulties while creating the animation and demo. We had to balance building the underlying functionality with making the concept easy to understand visually. Through brainstorming, rapid iteration, and dividing tasks across the team, we were able to focus on the core functionality and present how RoboPay enables robots from different vendors to transact and verify work without relying on a central intermediary.