Robotics Engineering Task Force (RETF) Charter

 

Version:    1.0

Date:         April, 2003

Expires:     November, 2003

Status:       Approved

 

Charter:

The Robotics Engineering Task Force (RETF) is a group of people from academia, government, and industry that share an interest in creating specifications for reusable, interoperable building blocks for mobile robots. We expect reusable, interoperable building blocks to help create a thriving mobile robot industry.

The RETF is not a research group nor is it attempting to demo a specific mobile robot scenario. The RETF defines specifications for software building blocks. While the focus is on software, some specifications identify key hardware features or instances of compatible hardware (e.g. actuators, sensors, motors, or communication interfaces). Some building blocks are software only with no need to specify hardware.

The RETF produces and maintains the specifications. Individuals produce and maintain their own implementations. The RETF observes working implementations as validation of the specifications. The RETF encourages implementations to be open source, but individuals writing code determine the fate of their own work.

Working code and rough consensus guide decisions to work on particular building blocks and to resolve differences of technical opinions about those building blocks.

The specification status levels are:

bullet Working Group Draft - document is in progress within a working group
bullet Draft Standard - specification is done, implementations are underway
bullet Proposed Standard - implementation experience leads to changes in spec, two or more implementations show the latest specification is functional
bullet Standard - specification is stable, specification is widely used by roboticists

Next Steps:

bullet Approve Intellectual Property Rights statement
bullet Produce Framework Document
bullet Produce Protocols Specification
bullet Produce API Specifications
bullet Produced Building Block Specification
bullet Face-to-face meeting in Las Vegas at IROS '03, Oct 30th 7pm-9pm, in room Bronze #3

Accomplishments:

bullet Framework Draft V0.9 - July, 2003
bullet Protocol Requirements Draft V0.9 - July, 2003
bullet API Draft V0.2 - Oct 15, 2003
bullet Approve Copyright statement - June, 2003
bullet Web page up - April, 2003
bullet Charter approved - April, 2003

 

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Follow this link to view a presentation providing an overview and information about the RETF  - RETF.