Common robotics data exchange format...?

[Please, skip this post unless you are _very motivated_ in setting up an
  "all-encompassing" standard for inter-robot-system communication.]

I'm responsible for the Orocos project, <http://www.orocos.org>, and 
one issue that surfaces in most of my discussions with contributors to
open source robotics projects is the standardisation of "objects" and
the protocols to exchange such objects in distributed systems.

Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of projects who I suspect to have an
interest in an effort to define a common set of objects and protocols,
to be used in, and between, all these projects:
  Player/Stage <http://playerstage.sourceforge.net/>
  Orocos <http://www.orocos.org>
  Miro <http://smart.informatik.uni-ulm.de/MIRO/>
  Orca <http://orca-robotics.sourceforge.net/>
  Marie <http://marie.sourceforge.net/>.
This email has been sent to all these projects.

A short outline of my ideas:

- the 1.0 goals are as modest as possible, but should cover all
   thinkable robot structures. (Platforms, arms, humanoids, PKMs
   (Parallel Kinematic Machines), etc.
- we should decouple the data representation from the communication
   infrastructure or communication protocols; and only the data
   representation belongs to the 1.0 scope.
- we decouple "motion" information from "shape" (trying to standardize
   2D/3D graphics is too difficult :-) So, basically, we standardize
   the representation of kinematics and dynamics of robots.
- we organize a public information meeting about the 1.0 version at ICRA05.
- we start from Player/Stage's current data structures (they _are_ the
   most successful of our projects, aren't they?:-), and discuss what
   should be added or changed in order to suit the other projects too.
- expressing your interest in the brainstorming does not commit yourself
   or your project in any way. This is just a genuine effort to get a
   constructive community discussion going, and if it leads to nothing, so
   be it :-)
- personally, I would go ahead with the process if at least three of the
   above-mentioned projects participate.

What do you think?

We can use an existing project's mailinglist, or set up a new one,
dedicated to this issue. I am willing to adapt to any workable solution,
and to setup this dedicated mailinglist, if desired.

Please, forward this message to any relevant robotics project that I
have forgotten.

For your information, there is also a somewhat similar effort going in
the open source computer animation community, with the Verse project:
  <http://www.blender.org/modules/verse/>.
They want to go way further, but robots ("armatures" in CA speak) are
included...

Best regards,

Herman Bruyninckx

-- 
   K.U.Leuven, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics Research Group
<http://people.mech.kuleuven.ac.be/~bruyninc> Tel: +32 16 322480