Monthly Highlights 2001

August 2001

The NIST reference arenas for evaluating the performance of search and rescue robots were shipped to Seattle, Washington, in early August for use in the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) mobile robot rescue competition, which was held jointly with RoboCup Rescue. The competition is meant to stimulate progress in robot research by providing concrete, repeatable, measurable challenges in sensing, navigation, planning, human-robot interaction, mobility, and other technologies required for successful mobile robots. Robots are to explore the 3 different sections that simulate a collapsed building, locate as many victims and hazards as possible, and communicate their findings (preferably with a map) to the human supervisor within 25 minutes. Victims are represented by mannequin parts, clothing, movement, sound (cries for help, banging), and heat signatures. The arenas provide three different levels of difficulty in navigation, traversability, and spatial layout.

Over the course of 3 days, 4 teams competed officially and half a dozen different organizations gave demonstrations of their robots going through the arenas. None of the teams accumulated enough points to place, but two qualitative awards were given out. The Artificial Intelligence Award was given to Swarthmore College for demonstrating the most AI functionality. The platform award was given to Sharif University (Iran) for their original tracked vehicle.

The main designer of the arenas, Adam Jacoff, was asked to Chair the RoboCup Rescue event next year, which will be held in Japan in June, 2002. The RoboCup organizers plan to recreate the NIST arenas at each country where the competition is held and leave them behind permanently to stimulate progress. RoboCup Rescue is a new event within the overall RoboCup competition framework. RoboCup is an international effort to foster artificial intelligence and robotics research by providing a standard problem where a wide range of technologies can be examined and integrated. The first problem focus area has been robotic soccer. Wildly popular world-wide, there are over 3000 researchers from 35 countries participating in robotic soccer matches currently. Due to the Kobe earthquake, Oklahoma City bombing, and other disasters, the RoboCup community selected the Search and Rescue mission as their second application domain, one with significant potential societal benefits.

Contact: Elena Messina, elena.messina@nist.gov

July 2001

Shortening time to market is a strategic imperative for U.S. manufacturers in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. Achieving a seamless flow of data from CAD part models to equipment on the factory floor is a key requirement to shorten product cycles. In the area of metrology equipment, one of the key interfaces that NIST has identified to focus on is the interface between the metrology hardware, the coordinate measuring machine for example, and the control system for that hardware. NIST is working with the Metrology Automation Association to develop a standard for this interface, which is called the Common Machine Interface (CMI). Industry is setting the specifications and NIST is providing testing tools. At the SIMA Annual Review in July, NIST researchers teamed with one of the leading manufacturers of metrology equipment, LK Metrology, to demonstrate the CMI test suite. John Horst, Hui-min Huang, and Harry Scott of NIST and Dave Smith of LK Metrology successfully presented and demonstrated the CMI test suite effort. Developers of the demonstrated system also i ncluded Keith Stouffer, Joe Falco and Tom Kramer. Demonstrated were the NIST-developed common sender and receiver utilities, a common test artifact, and an implementation of CMI on a Coordinate Measurement Machine by LK. The demonstration of the test suite included the transmission of a CMI compliant test file from the NIST AMSANT lab to the facility at LK in the U.K., execution of the file on the CMM at LK to inspect features on the test part, monitoring and collection of status information, and review of test log files with preliminary analysis tools. The demonstration included transmission of live video and audio over the internet from the LK location in England to the AMSANT Lab at NIST. Other major participants in defining the CMI include Brown & Sharpe and Zeiss.

Contact: Al Wavering, albert.wavering@nist.gov

June 2001

NIST has been working with the Robotic Industries Association (RIA) to explore standards for open architecture control for industrial robots. As a result of several workshops organized by NSIT and RIA, a subcommittee of the ANSI R15 Robot Standards Committee has been established and has agreed to a first standard on integrating industrial robots with factory data networks. Technical Report R15.04-TR.1 on communication standards for robot controllers has resulted from an ongoing discussion on the applicability of common networking standards such as Ethernet, TCP/IP, and FTP to robots. General agreement from all parts of the market was that issues with reliability, determinism, and performance have largely disappeared with the advent of faster networks, fiber optic cable, and network switches that localize traffic. Inclusion of R15.04-TR.1 in purchase specifications by the large automotive customers is imminent, and just as significant, robot vendors are poised to respond. This is the first step toward a series of open architecture standards aimed at reducing integration costs of factory automation systems.

Contact: Fred Proctor, frederick.proctor@nist.gov

May 2001

As announced at a meeting the previous month at the Quality Expo International, DaimlerChysler, Ford, and NIST hosted a meeting May 22, 2001 in Detroit, MI to propose the formation of a new consortium to address interoperability among the software and hardware components used in automated metrology. The goal of the Metrology Interoperability Consortium is to reduce product development cycle time and manufacturing costs by achieving interoperability of the software and hardware components used in automated metrology. A key mechanism for effecting this will be for the consortium to provide a single "voice of the user" in specifying interoperability requirements. Activities to be conducted are expected to include such things as:

Projects that require testing will be carried out using a distributed Metrology Testbed that consists of equipment and software owned and operated by the participants at their own sites. NIST's primary role in the MIC will be the development of procedures and tools for conformance and interoperability testing.

A significant NIST contribution to the meeting was a draft Analysis of Dimensional Metrology Standards document that provided a framework for much of the meeting discussion. The document focuses on the degree to which existing and developing standards provide a complete set of non-overlapping specifications for information needed to perform automated dimensional metrology. It also provides draft recommendations regarding standards development.

The meeting was attended by 45 representatives of major metrology system users, vendors, and technology providers.

In a related event, NIST MEL representatives participated in a Metrology Automation Association (MAA) meeting May 21 to organize a committee to coordinate development of the Common Machine Interface (CMI), a specification for low level communications with dimensional measuring equipment. The CMI is aimed at achieving plug-and-play compatibility among different makes and types of dimensional measuring equipment. NIST has been working with several measurement equipment vendors to help develop refinements to and test methods for a specification (the CMM Common Driver) that is expected to provide a starting point for the CMI Coordinating Committee's efforts.

Contact: Al Wavering, albert.wavering@nist.gov

Fred Proctor attended a ballot review meeting of ISO TC184 SC1 WG7, the working group responsible for ISO 14649, the STEP-NC standard for integrating product and process data with machine tool control. The meeting was held in Frankfurt May 9-11 at the headquarters of the VDMA, the German trade group for manufacturing technology. Balloting on ISO 14649 resulting in three "no" votes cast by the U.S., U.K., and Sweden, with the common concern that ISO 14649 was not harmonized with the ISO 10303 STEP standard. Considerable work prior to this ballot review resulted in harmonization plans that were reviewed at the meeting, which then lead to fast-track plans for a new release of the affected parts to the dissenting voters.

Contact: Fred Proctor, frederick.proctor@nist.gov

April 2001

Globalization and continuing pressure to decrease time to market are driving manufacturers to seek hardware and software for automated dimensional metrology that can be mixed-and-matched with products from a variety of vendors. They require metrology systems that can be easily integrated into their overall manufacturing operations, and that have standard command and data interfaces that allow inspection operations to be executed on equipment from different vendors without reprogramming. While there are ongoing efforts in a number of areas headed toward this goal, there is still work to be done. On April 25, 2001, DaimlerChysler, Ford, and NIST hosted a meeting in Rosemont, IL coincident with the Quality Expo International to propose the formation of a new consortium to address interoperability among the software and hardware components used in automated metrology. Establishment of such an umbrella organization to coordinate standards development and testing activities was one of the primary action items that came out of a NIST-Metrology Automation Association (MAA) workshop on Open Architecture for Metrology Automation held in May 2000. The April 25 meeting was attended by approximately 30 representatives of major metrology system users, vendors, and technology providers. Attendees were largely very supportive of the idea of setting up a Metrology Interoperability Consortium. An all day follow-up meeting is being planned for May 22, 2001 in Detroit to provide more detail on the proposed consortium and to develop the consortium projects and statement of work. Presentation slides from the April 25 meeting will be posted at the MAA web site.

In a related Quality Expo event, the MAA held a press conference April 26 to promote participation in the development of the Common Machine Interface (CMI) protocol, a specification for low level communications with dimensional measuring equipment. MAA is organizing a CMI Coordinating Committee to formalize development and testing of the CMI, which until now has been an informal effort by several large coordinate measuring machine vendors. The CMI work will be one of the projects under the new Metrology Interoperability Consortium. NIST has been supporting the CMI development by reviewing the specification and developing testing tools and procedures. The first meeting of the CMI Coordinating Committee is scheduled for May 21, 2001, also in Detroit.

Contact: Al Wavering, albert.wavering@nist.gov

Fred Proctor participated in a meeting of the Robotic Industries Association (RIA) R15.04 Communication and Information Committee, held April 19 in Detroit, MI. The committee was previously inactive, and was reconvened as a result of interest in standards for network integration of robot controllers arising from the NIST/RIA workshop series on open architecture control. The committee is comprised of robot vendors (Fanuc Robotics North America, Kuka Development Laboratories), robot users (General Motors, Ford), and third parties (B2D Solutions, Radix Controls, Pilz Automation, NIST, RIA). The group discussed publishing a technical report derived from the communication requirements in GM's General Requirements Specification for robot controllers. These include Ethernet, TCP/IP, and FTP, with additional classification of robot controller data files intended to enable uniform file upload, download, and compare (UDC) across vendors. The draft report has been circulated and will be presented at the RIA Robots and Vision conference in June in Chicago.

Contact: Fred Proctor, frederick.proctor@nist.gov

February 2001

ISD has begun a new effort to help reduce the vulnerability of utility and process control industries to computer-based attacks. Under the FY01 Critical Infrastructure Protection Initiative and in support of the National Plan for Information Systems Protection, ISD will be working with ITL, EEEL, BFRL, NSA, EPRI, and process control industry groups to apply and disseminate ITL information security techniques and strategies to these industries. In particular, the program will apply the Common Criteria for IT Security Evaluation (ISO 15408) to develop information security requirements for supervisory and plant distributed control products and systems. The primary leverage point for this effort will be working with ITL and the National Security Agency (through the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP)). A NIAP Process Control Security Requirements Forum (PCSRF) has recently been established to address the issues of computer and network security for industrial control systems, and ISD has accepted responsibility for leading this group. Although the PCSRF effort is focused on process control, we will also be looking to bring the security knowledge, techniques and approaches learned to the standards and industry groups we work with in the discrete part-manufacturing sector.

Security for Process Control website.

Contact: Al Wavering, albert.wavering@nist.gov

January 2001

NIST and the Robotic Industries Association (RIA) hosted another in a series of one-day workshops on Open Architecture Control in Robotics on January 29. The meeting was held outside Detroit at the facilities of FANUC Robotics North America. The purpose of the meeting was to review the status of near-term objectives in integrating communication standards into robot controllers. General Motors presented their Global Requirements Specification (GRS-1) for robot controllers, specifically focusing on communication requirements that include Ethernet, TCP/IP, and FTP for the "first wave" of commercial adoption. FANUC and Rockwell Automation presented the commercial availability of these standards and discussed issues pertinent to industrial equipment and real-time performance. The group agreed to rekindle the RIA Communications Technical Subcommittee under the R15 Standards Committee, and take the communication section of GM's GRS-1 document as the basis for a Technical Report. This report is expected to be referenced in purchasing by automotive and aerospace manufacturers.

Contact: Fred Proctor, frederick.proctor@nist.gov

Monthly Highlights for 2003

Monthly Highlights for 2002

Monthly Highlights for 2000

Monthly Highlights for 1999

Date created: 4/16/2003
Last updated: 4/16/2003