Standard protocols prove to be valuable tools for industrial-grade robotic solutions. At FARobot, we developed a proprietary protocol called Swarm Protocol. In addition to providing standard functions, it also delivers a powerful tool to take a “system perspective” approach. What does this mean and why is it important?
Standard protocols promoted by the German automotive industry (VDA5050) and the MIT (Mass robotics) both focus on one thing: the Agents.
They both forget that every Agent interacts with a large array of peripheral Artifacts, including:
• Conveyors • Top-modules • Sensors • Elevators • Call buttons • Pallet platforms
With these peripherals being part of every project, a standard protocol should extend its scope to provide the same services to manufacturing and logistical equipment as well.
These challenges can be solved through three features that enable artifact-server-agent interoperability:
Peer-to-peer communication to reduce server traffic.
Individual QoS and remote updates.
An SDK to wrap these agents and artifacts.
Why is this important?
Project duration and costs are slowing the adoption of mobile robots. With the increased connectivity of manufacturing equipment, end-users need:
Active equipment available anytime with the right QoS setting.
Decentralized communication to reduce network traffic, avoiding a single point of failure.
System-level fail safe mechanisms to ensure continuous operation.
To address these requirements, FARobot is set to launch Swarm Protocol and its Swarm-ready SDK. Stay tuned for the product launch.