scope:

This standard defines a core ontology that allows for the representation of, reasoning about, and communication of knowledge in the robotics and automation (R&A) domain. This ontology includes generic concepts as well as their definitions, attributes, constraints, and relationships. These terms can be specialized to capture the detailed semantics for concepts in robotics sub-domains.

This standard contains the Core Ontology for Robotics and Automation (CORA) with the representation of fundamental concepts from which the more detailed concepts belonging to other Ontologies for Robotics and Automation Working Group (ORA WG) ontologies are constructed. This standard also defines the ontology engineering methodology used to construct the ORA ontologies.

Purpose

The purpose of this standard is to provide a methodology for knowledge representation and reasoning in robotics and automation (R&A) together with the core ontology for the R&A domain. The standard provides a unified way of representing knowledge and provides a common set of term definitions, allowing for unambiguous knowledge transfer among any group of humans, robots, and other artificial systems.

The standard aims to provide a common vocabulary along with clear and concise definitions from the R&A domain. With the growing complexity of behaviors that robots are expected to perform, as well as the need for multi-robot collaboration and human-robot collaboration, the need for a standard and well-defined knowledge representation is becoming more evident. The standard knowledge representation methodology and terminology:

a) More precisely define the concepts in the robot's knowledge representation

b) Promote common understanding among members of the community

c) Facilitate data integration and transfer of information among robotic systems

Information included in this knowledge representation encompasses, but is not limited to, robot hardware and software, activities and goals, environment, cause and effects of performing actions, and relationship among other robots and people.

The intended audience for this standard is robot manufacturers, system integrators, robot end users (part manufacturers, automotive industry, construction industry, service and solution providers, etc.), robot equipment suppliers, robot software developers, and researchers/developers.