There is a need for standards in everything. Now there is a world standard for capturing and conveying the knowledge that robots possess. This interesting subject came from Scientific Computing in their article, “Ontology for Automatons: Standard Knowledge for Robots.”
An ontology for automatons was crafted by a working group of 166 experts. The IEEE Standard for Ontologies for Robotics and Automation (IEEE P1872) is designed to simplify programming, and to extend the information processing and reasoning capabilities of robots.
“As technology advances, robots are growing in their capabilities and, someday, may become jacks of many — if not all — trades,” explains NIST engineer Craig Schlenoff, who chairs the IEEE working group that developed the standard. “They will work collaboratively with other robots and with humans. So, there will be — and, in fact, there already is — a need for clear, unambiguous communication.”
The new standard is a good start. It defines what a robot is in the scope of the standard, defines common concepts, and provides an organizational framework for succeeding efforts to develop for specific classes of robots.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
