Quick Start Guide

Launch the full ROBIN stack and see live telemetry in under two minutes.

What You Will See

By the end of this guide you will have:

  • A complete FIWARE data layer (Orion-LD, TimescaleDB, Mintaka) running in Docker

  • The Alert Engine (FastAPI) serving deviation detection and AI predictions

  • The ROBIN Dashboard (React) showing live KPIs, time-series charts, robot control, 3D visualisation, and deviation monitoring

  • A 3D Visualization server (Viser) rendering a UR5 robot with live welding animation driven by simulation progress

  • Simulated process telemetry flowing through the entire stack in real time

        graph LR
    subgraph stack ["docker compose up -d"]
        ORION["Orion-LD<br/>Context Broker"]
        TSDB[("TimescaleDB")]
        MINTAKA["Mintaka<br/>Temporal API"]
        ALERT["Alert Engine<br/>+ AI Model"]
        VISER["Viser<br/>3D Visualization"]
        DASH["ROBIN Dashboard"]
    end
    SIM["Simulation<br/>Script"] -->|NGSI-LD| ORION
    ORION --> TSDB
    TSDB --> MINTAKA
    ALERT --> ORION
    ALERT --> MINTAKA
    DASH --> ALERT
    DASH -->|WebSocket| VISER

Prerequisites

  • Docker and Docker Compose installed and running

  • Python 3.12+ with Poetry

  • ROBIN dependencies installed (poetry install)

See Installation Guide for full setup instructions.

Step 1 - Launch the Stack

docker compose up -d

Verify all services are healthy:

docker compose ps

Service

Port

Role

orion-ld

1026

NGSI-LD context broker (FIWARE)

mongo-db

27017

Orion-LD persistence

timescaledb

5433

Temporal storage (TROE)

mintaka

9090

Temporal query API

alert-processor

8001

Process Intelligence API (Module 1)

robin-dashboard

5174

Operator Dashboard (Module 2)

robin-viser

8081, 8082

3D Visualization (Viser + WebSocket bridge)

vulcanexus

ROS 2 / DDS bridge container

Quick health check:

curl http://localhost:8001/health

Step 2 - Open the Dashboard

Open http://localhost:5174 in your browser.

ROBIN Dashboard - Live Ops cockpit

This is the Live Ops cockpit - the main operator view. It’s empty right now because no data is flowing yet. For a full walkthrough of every panel, see Operator Dashboard.

Step 3 - Start a Demo

Run the canonical welding demo (parameter-driven mode). The script will create the process, configure AI expectations, then wait for you to press Start from the dashboard UI before streaming data:

python demo/profiles/welding_profile.py \
    --process-id demo-quickstart \
    --mode parameter_driven \
    --duration 60 \
    --interval 0.3

The terminal will print:

Waiting for Start from the dashboard UI for process "demo-quickstart"...
  Open http://localhost:5174, select process "demo-quickstart", and press Start.

Step 4 - Press Start

  1. In the dashboard, select demo-quickstart from the process selector dropdown in the top bar.

  2. Click the Start button in the Robot Control panel.

  3. The simulation script detects the start signal and begins streaming telemetry.

You will see:

  • The progress bar advancing in real time with the actual simulation progress (elapsed time / total duration).

  • Telemetry charts and KPI cards updating live.

  • The 3D visualization showing the UR5 robot performing a welding sweep along the seam, driven by the simulation progress.

  • Deviation alerts firing during injected deviation windows.

Tip

Use --no-prompt to skip the Start-button wait and stream data immediately (useful for CI or scripted verification runs).

ROBIN Dashboard - process selector with multiple processes

Step 5 - Clean Up

Remove demo data without stopping the stack:

./demo/cleanup-demo.sh demo-quickstart

Or tear everything down:

docker compose down -v

After Code Changes (Rebuild + Sanity Check)

If you changed robin/, robin-dashboard/, or robin-ui/services/, refresh the running services:

docker compose build alert-processor robin-dashboard robin-viser
docker compose up -d --force-recreate alert-processor robin-dashboard robin-viser

Then run a short verification demo and confirm UI data source/cadence:

BASE="verify-$(date +%s)"
python demo/profiles/welding_profile.py \
    --process-id "$BASE" \
    --mode both \
    --duration 60 \
    --interval 1 \
    --no-prompt

In the dashboard (http://localhost:5174), select ${BASE}-parameter and ${BASE}-geometry and verify the Telemetry panel shows:

  • Mintaka stored data source chip

  • Poll 1s (Active Run) or Poll 2s (Demo Mode)

API confirmation:

curl -s "http://localhost:8001/process/${BASE}-parameter/measurements?last=5" | jq '.debug_info.source'

Expected:

"mintaka"

What’s Next

Now that the stack is running, explore ROBIN in depth: