Overview

The Paranet is a layered network architecture composed of interconnected, named subnetworks known as paranets. Within each paranet are nodes – diverse computing devices like laptops, IoT devices, and cloud virtual machines, each equipped with an operating system responsible for the storage and computational resources of its hosted autonomous software entities, called actors. These actors maintain their own state and interact using a collaboration protocol that involves the exchange of skill requests, fulfillments, and notifications. Paraflow is a specialized language designed to facilitate actor workflows and network orchestration across the Paranet. When an actor requires a specific capability, it makes a skill request, which is then matched by nodes within the network to locate the optimal actor for fulfillment.

Paranet: A New Model For Development

There is no new hardware required to run paranets. It’s all software. It sits on top of the current IT and OT realms in a conceptual AT/Layer 8 layer. It is easy to deploy anywhere giving developers both flexibility and security to safely run anywhere and on anything.

Autonomous programming creates self-governing entities, not just interrupt or event handlers. Paraflow’s constructs (e.g., goal trees) and PnCP’s skills enable actors to think and collaborate like a networked brain—ideal for AT’s distributed operations (e.g., AMR sequencing). It transcends existing frameworks and methodologies by offering a deterministic, collaborative paradigm where programs operate autonomously.

Advances in technology sometimes mimic what we find in nature. Honeybees operate autonomously as part of an ecosystem of bees in a colony, the plants which they pollinate, and so on. They use pheromones to orchestrate and regulate activity. In effect, they are autonomous actors in a network of orchestrated work. Worker bees have skills they perform such as building the hive and scouting for nectar. Queen bees have skills to regulate hive humidity and to find mating drones outside the hive. While all bees work autonomously and maintain state to know what they have done and are to do next, they are still interdependent. None work alone.

The Paranet enables ecosystems of digital actors. Like pheromones, they collaborate using PnCP, the Paranet Collaboration Protocol. Humans, robots, agents, applications, web services and anything with a digital interface can be an actor on the Paranet.