Proposal of open-network-interface for industrial robots (ORiN) and its experimental evaluation

Since 1999, the Japan Robot Association (JARA) has been conducting the standardization activities (ORiN : Open Robot Interface for the Network) in which main subject is the network interface for the robot controller. In the 1999 international robot exhibition, our activities and results were opened and demonstrated to the public. In this demonstration, industrial robots from 13 Japanese domestic robot manufacturers, that had different specifications and structures, were connected each other with communication network using ORiN API, applications for production system management and 3-D robot motion monitor were demonstrated. The purpose of this demonstration is to verify the openness of ORiN API and to certify the proposed de-facto standard protocol and robot model. In this paper, we introduce the objective and outline of those activities and technologies. Then, we describe the outline of the experimental setup to evaluate the developed technologies, the evaluation results of the demonstration, the curre nt activities, the revised schedule and plan toward the de-facto standard.