Proxima Robotics: A license manager for robots
The challenge
Proxima’s software is its know-how. They needed to be certain it could not be copied or installed on unauthorized robots, which meant a licensing system secure enough to protect the product without ever getting in its way.
1 : 1
Each license bound to a single robot
Anti-clone
Fingerprint from CPU ID, MAC addresses and serials
Anti-replay
Every response tied to the moment it was requested
What we built
We designed and built a custom license manager that treats each robot as a true IoT device, tracking power-on, power-off and access against the validity of its license:
- A unique digital identity for every robot: a cryptographic fingerprint derived from hardware and software parameters such as CPU ID, MAC addresses, serial numbers and internal configuration.
- Clone detection by design: copy the software to another robot and the fingerprint no longer matches, so the license is invalid.
- Time-bound requests: each call to the license server carries a temporal element and the response is generated against it, so a recorded answer is useless later and replay attacks fail.
The result
Each license is bound to one robot, and a copied install or a replayed response is rejected. The checks run in the background without slowing Proxima’s software down, and new robot models can be added with little extra work.
About the client
Proxima Robotics was founded in December 2017 as a spin-off of the E. Piaggio Research Center at the University of Pisa. It builds plug-and-play software that lets mobile robots (AGV/AMR) navigate on their own and fit into production and logistics, with interfaces anyone can use.
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