MassRobotics Interop Standard

Defines a canonical data model for representing any robot's operational state, regardless of manufacturer. This includes:

• Pose: x, y, and theta (orientation) coordinates in a shared reference frame
• Velocity: linear and angular speed vectors
• Battery level: percentage and estimated remaining runtime
• Operational mode: autonomous, manual, e-stop, or charging
• Task status: idle, executing, paused, completed, or failed

This normalization allows a central fleet manager to reason about a heterogeneous fleet as a uniform collection of state machines.

Uses a topic-based pub/sub architecture where robots broadcast state updates and listen for commands on well-known channels. Key characteristics:

• Robots publish their state to a topic like robot/{id}/state at a configurable frequency
• Orchestrators publish commands to robot/{id}/command
• Decoupled communication: producers and consumers don't need to know each other's network addresses
• Supports MQTT as the primary transport protocol, chosen for its low bandwidth overhead and suitability for unreliable wireless networks

Specifies a zero-configuration discovery process for new robots joining the network. The workflow includes:

• A robot broadcasts a presence announcement upon connection
• The central orchestrator queries the robot's capability manifest, a structured document listing its physical constraints and functional abilities
• Capabilities include maximum payload, navigation type (e.g., SLAM, line-following), and available sensor modalities
• This enables true plug-and-play interoperability without manual driver installation or configuration files

Establishes a common coordinate frame and map-sharing protocol so robots from different vendors can navigate the same physical space without collisions. The standard defines:

• A method for aligning each robot's local map to a global origin point
• Occupancy grid sharing: robots can publish their local obstacle detections to a shared map topic
• Lane and zone definitions using geofenced polygons with access control rules
• This shared spatial awareness is the foundation for safe, coordinated multi-vendor fleet operations in warehouses and factories.

Defines a safety-critical signaling protocol for propagating emergency stop commands across the entire heterogeneous fleet. When any e-stop button is pressed:

• A high-priority message is broadcast to the safety/estop topic with QoS level 2 (exactly once delivery)
• All connected robots must transition to a safe, motionless state within a bounded latency window
• The standard specifies a heartbeat-based liveness check: if a robot stops receiving safety heartbeats, it must autonomously engage its brakes
• This ensures that safety is not dependent on any single vendor's proprietary implementation.

Provides a minimal set of vendor-agnostic task commands that any compliant robot must understand. These primitives include:

• Navigate to waypoint: go to a specified x, y coordinate with a target orientation
• Dock at station: perform a precision docking maneuver at a defined location
• Charge: navigate to the nearest available charging station
• Pause/Resume: temporarily halt or continue current task execution

Higher-level orchestration logic composes complex workflows from these atomic primitives, ensuring portability across different robot hardware.