Tom, Sarah and Ben are managers in the agricultural, hospital and manufacturing environments respectively. Each of them is looking to turn technological progress to their advantage to improve their production processes, but they are not really satisfied by the robots currently on the market. Further R&D, and the corresponding operational and technological development, is simply too expensive for them.
Through the European RobMoSys software project, they will be able to implement a cost-effective solution using available robotics components to meet their specific needs.
The idea behind RobMoSys is to open up the possibility of assembling only those robotic functions that are really needed, like one might assemble computer components in a PC.
An open innovation ecosystem
The research teams in charge of the project, coordinated by the CEA, are committed to developing a Europe-wide ecosystem that meets the needs of industry: modularity, reliability, reuse, certification, etc. By encouraging the involvement of the robotics industry in subjects of common interest, the scope of robot use can be broadened while increasing the scalability and quality of robotics software development by standardising basic functionality such as motion control, navigation, software components of certifiable quality and achieve predictable system integration.
Tom, Sarah and Ben will soon be able to join the digital revolution without breaking the bank!
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The European RobMoSys project will enable the interfaces between different robotics-related domains to be managed in an efficient and systematic way according to each system’s needs. For example, two robots could easily be programmed to work together in the presence of an operator who will be able to intervene in the process in total safety. RobMoSys offers a software component development platform for robotics on the one hand, and the most commonly used application components on the other. More generally, RobMoSys is fed by the community through two open calls for funded proposals. The aim of the project is to build a European ecosystem for open and sustainable industry-grade software development for robotics. It involves an integrated approach for robotics platforms by applying model-driven methods and tools. The objective of the RobMoSys ecosystem is to adopt a modular approach to component integration that manages, maintains and guarantees system properties at model level: being capable of building on top of the current code-centric robotic platforms, while preserving their modularity and independence", explains Huascar Espinoza (CEA-List), Project Coordinator.
The integration of collaborative robotics in particular and the standards established by the robotics community in general into software developments is one of the strong points of the RobMoSys project. This allows the different protagonists of the project to rely on standards at a lower cost when using the same software tool.
Within the framework of the RobMoSys project, a robot marketed by Isybot (a start-up from the CEA), specially designed for collaborative interaction between man and machine on fine crafts and trades tasks, can now collaborate with another robot that moves and positions heavy workpieces.
The Isybot sanding robot works in parallel with an operator ©Isybot