Modular Robots + Synchronous Robots + Multi-arm Robots

As soon as trade progresses beyond swapping chickens for grain at your local market you need standards. This includes standard weights and measures, currency and specifications for quality and operating performance. Our whole engineering world revolves around precise measurements of time, distance and mass. And the standard units of these are specified to ridiculous accuracies and held in sealed vaults deep within the world’s major capitals. Without them our world would soon disintegrate, and anarchy would prevail. Although we can safely assume that the fundamental standards are fully defined and secure; we cannot afford to be so complacent regarding the subset of these standards that affect the world of robotics. With this in mind I was initially alarmed to receive the paper by Zhu (refer page 243-249) that demonstrates clear inadequacies and errors in the ANSI/ RIA standards for evaluating robot performance. The American National Standards Institute and Robotic Industries Association (of America) are to be applauded for getting the standard together in the first place and I am sure that they will welcome the contribution from Zhu and others that will, over time, refine, improve and expand the standard concerned. I do not in any way blame ANSI or the RIA for the errors identified, although they are unfortunate. The real question is not why the errors were made, but why has it taken 12 years for them to be identified. The answer to this is that robot manufacturers and users have not bothered to use the standard. Another failing identified in the paper is that there are several versions of the standards which essentially cover the same areas but which result in different definitions and means of classification. It seems crazy to me to have anything other than an international (ISO) standard for what is, after all, an international commodity. Coming up with national standards is in my view a rather parochial and arrogant activity that does greatest harm to the country proposing it. Our theme for this issue includes applications that require multiple robots to work in synchronisation. Tasks such as these, and offline programming and calibration, require a detailed knowledge of a robot’s operating performance on our part. We can obtain this information only if we have standards to base our measurements. The future of robotics will depend on us being able to operate our robots in this way. The teach pendant may not be dead yet, but its days as the primary means of robot programming are over. I would therefore urge all robot manufacturers to specify their robots in terms of only ISO standards and for users to work with them and the International Standards Organisations to correct and refine the standards to meet their needs. I would also hope that national organisations will work with ISO and assist their members with the adoption and implementation of international standards rather than local versions. We will all benefit. Clive Loughlin