Sometime In The Near Future
After a long week at work, you open your fridge door and see there's nothing inside to eat. Instead of jumping back into the car you log onto an app and order some shawarma and salad from across town. The restaurant doesn't deliver so you order a delivery via an unmanned drone.
Due to the distance between the restaurant and your house the drone communicates via a network to a charging station where it lands to refuel. The drone pays the charging station autonomously and continues with the delivery. When you receive your food the payment to the drone is automatically transacted.
TL;DR The Dav Network
What was just described is the DAV Network, which is a new blockchain project that will allow Decentralized Autonomous Vehicles to communicate with each other, with people, and with service providers such as charging stations and package loaders.
The DAV Network uses the blockchain to create a trustless p2p environment via smart contracts. The shawarma example would involve a sender, recipient, charging station, package loader (restaurant) and a drone operator. Each of these participants will have a DAV identity that will be verified via the blockchain prior to the delivery.
The Market
The way that people and goods are transported is changing quickly with the advent of autonomous vehicles. The economy is switching from one where vehicle ownership is a requirement to a new system where it is a hindrance and added expense. Interestingly, the idea is the same for individuals and for businesses.
In July 2010, Uber provided their first "p2p" rideshare in San Francisco and disrupted the entire taxi ecosystem. This first step set into motion a passenger economy that is expected to be worth upwards of $7 trillion per year by 2050.
Meanwhile, the technology behind autonomous vehicles has reached a level where self-driving cars are actively sharing the road, delivery trucks have completed long distance deliveries and aerial drones have flown from Amazon to the customer.
Lastly, a new market has developed for the delivery of goods. When Amazon.com hit its stride the number of products being delivered directly to customers skyrocketed. UPS distribution centers are filled with Amazon cartons and independent drivers are working 7 days a week to deliver packages. People are ordering everything and willing to pay for convenience.
DAV Ties All Of This Together
DAV Network is what ties all of this together by creating an open-source decentralized protocol for DAVs that allows all participants, human, and machine, to communicate with each other.
The DAV ecosystem consists of five main modules that will be built into an easy to use UI. The five modules are:
Identity
Each entity on the DAV Network has a unique DAV Identity. This identity can represent a person looking ordering a car pickup, a drone charging station, a driverless car, or even a group of several cargo drones controlled by a single system.
The identity system must ensure that the system provides safe and reliable service and does this through a type of decentralized reputation system that tracks public transaction history and utilizes both third-party arbitrators and third-party insurers.
Discovery
This portion of DAV is what allows each entity to identify each other on the system using a type of peer to peer node system. The discovery system is what allows an autonomous drone to find a charging station.
Communication
The decentralized communication system allows entities to communicate both on and off-chain. On-chain communications include those where DAV tokens are transacted or smart contracts are utilized.
Off-chain communication is used when nodes are involved. An example would be a drone sending out a message requesting a charging station within a certain price range.
Mission Flow
The mission flow is the decentralized communication that begins with an initial statement of need through bidding, service fulfillment, and ends with payment. These services are mostly conducted off-chain and start with a user requesting a service and receiving a quote for the cost.
The user then signs the winning bid and makes payment when the contract is complete.
Payments
Payments on the DAV Network are made using DAV tokens. If a user orders a hamburger to be delivered by a drone only the drone portion would be paid in DAV tokens and in the DAV Network smart contract.
The Roadmap
This is a huge project with an ambitious roadmap that starts small and ends with building and incentivizing DAV cities.
The DAV team has already completed early milestones including the first smart contract deployment and the first drone delivery that was completely negotiated and executed autonomously.
In the short term future, the network is planning to launch in May 2018, autonomous vehicle charging begins in Q3 2018, the first boat mission is targeted to be completed in Q3 '18 and the first vehicle to vehicle communication conducted in Q4 '18.
Establishing the basic foundation for individual identities, communication, discovery, and payment is key to the future development of DAV.
The People
The DAV team is large and has a breadth of experience although they are lacking somewhat in blockchain and tech skills. The advisor set is full of all-stars including experts from the automotive industry (GM), NASA, Ethereum, SAP, FAA, UPS, Cisco, Ford, and IBM.
- CEO is Noam Copel , Co-Founder of MetaCafe.
- CTO Tal Ater, Former VP of Product Management at Somoto Inc.
- CCO John Frazer, External Relations Lead for Ethereum Foundation
The team is also highly supported by a large group of open source contributors.
Overall
DAV is attempting to establish itself as the backbone of the autonomous vehicle economy. The market is in its very early stages which will allow DAV to grow in tandem with the infrastructure of the market it wishes to serve.
If the strong advisor set can help the team establish partnerships with established brands the DAV Network may be able to grab a 1st movers advantage.
How to Participate
If you would like to use the DAV Network as a buyer or seller then you can purchase tokens on an exchange when available or via the token sale.
📅ICO Date: June 11, 2018.
📈Token Ticker: DAV
💵Token Price: 10,000 DAV/ETH
Total Supply at TGE: 1,771,428,571 DAV
Hardcap: $38 million
Amount for Sale: 40%
Token Type: ERC20
DAV Website ||Whitepaper ||Telegram || Bounty
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*This post contains a project overview not investment advice. As always do your own research before participating in a project of any fashion.