NEXT Robotics

Oct 6 2022

 

Driving the adoption of a common Robotics Middleware Frameweork with Open Robotics

NCS Robotics Team is delighted to work with Open Robotics to extend the Open Robotics Middleware Framework (Open-RMF) capabilities to support security robot use cases. The enhancements enable RMF to be applied beyond the initial set of use cases, particularly for security robot use cases.

Most importantly, we are thrilled to share that this amazing work is contributed back to the global robotics community, and further drive interoperability of heterogenous fleets of robotic systems.

Both teams worked over a period of 4-months to improve and add specific open-source features available in Open-RMF for the global robotics ecosystem:

  • Live Video Streaming — enable live video streaming from the robots to video clients or video management system
  • Teleoperation — enable remote control over the security robot (e.g. to move in closer for investigation or freeing a trapped robot manually)
  • Event/Notifications — enable robot-triggered events (e.g. via human detection video analytics) to be sent to other 3rd-party system such as the dashboard of a command post
  • Customised tasks — enable developers to define tasks for robots with additional payload capabilities (e.g. security robot that has siren/stroke lights etc)
  • GPS coordinate support — enable support for outdoor robots and autonomous vehicles
As shared by Matthew Festo, General Manager of Open Robotics Singapore in the video on our demo day, “Collaboration with NCS is a key milestone in the development roadmap of Open-RMF to further demonstrate industry adoption and platform interoperability. The extended open-source capabilities being developed and incorporated in Open-RMF will work seamlessly with NCS robotmanager platform — directly benefiting their customers while also being a part of the core open-source libraries available to the global robotics community.”

Common Standards will accelerate the adoption of robotics

The service robot industry is gaining traction globally, projecting to grow by $67Bn at a CAGR of 23.3% during the forecast period, up till 2026[1].

Yet, the market is highly fragmented (over 80% made up by small players[2]) — with robot makers using their proprietary standards and interfaces — making it difficult for system integrators and end users to integrate and scale up robot operations.

With a common open standard framework, the robotics industry will experience accelerated growth from the following benefits:

  • Shorter time-to-market for robot manufacturers
  • Lower investment cost for robot manufacturers
  • Shorter time-to-deployment for users
  • Lower cost of deployment and maintenance for users
  • Increased market access

NCS robotmanager — the enterprise robot fleet management software for RMF

As we continue to onboard more robots and support more use cases on NCS robotmanager (an enterprise robot management software developed by NCS Robotics), ensuring our product works with RMF is critical to the community. When an enterprise is ready to advance their robot deployment into the production stage following their trial, robotmanager offers a tested and proven software with enterprise-level service support to command and control their robotics workforce.

We will continue to work with robot players, locally and globally, to co-create innovative autonomous solutions for our enterprise and government clients.

About NCS robotmanager:

NCS robotmanager is an AI-powered fleet management platform that helps supervise, control and orchestrate different brands and types of robots at scale. Rather than using a different interface for each robot type, which complicates integration, operational and maintenance efforts — robotmanager provides a seamless command and control user interface for all robot types.

About Open Robotics:

At Open Robotics, we work with industry, academia, and government to create and support open software and hardware for use in robotics, from research and education to product development. We develop and maintain the core of the Robot Operating System (ROS), and Gazebo , a 3D multi-robot simulator. Powered by the support of a global community, these tools are relied upon by hundreds of thousands of users and developers working with every type of robot imaginable.

About Open-RMF:

Open-RMF is a collection of free, open-source libraries and tools built on top of ROS 2 that enable the interoperability of heterogeneous fleets of any type of robotic systems. It utilises standardised communication protocols to infrastructure, environments and automation where robots are deployed to optimise the use of critical resources, like doors, elevators and building management systems.

About NEXT Robotics:

As a subsidiary of NCS, a top provider of information technology services in Southeast Asia, NEXT Robotics benefits from the expertise, resources, and extensive network of one of the industry’s most respected and successful companies. This allows us to offer our customers the most advanced robotics solutions available.

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