ORiN (Open Robot/Resource interface for the Network) is a standard network interface for FA (
factory automation
Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...
) systems. The
Japan Robot Association
The (JARA) is a trade association made up of companies in Japan that develop and manufacture robot technology. It was formed in 1971 as the Industrial Robot Conversazione and was the world's first robot association. The association was reorganize ...
proposed ORiN in 2002, and the ORiN Forum develops and maintains the ORiN standard.
Background
The installation of PC (
Personal Computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
) applications in the factory has increased dramatically recently. Various types of
application software
Application may refer to:
Mathematics and computing
* Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks
** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...
systems, such as production management systems,
process management Process management may refer to:
* Business process management
** Business Process Management Journal
** Dynamic business process management
** International Conference on Business Process Management
** Social business process management
* Manag ...
systems, operation monitoring systems and
failure analysis Failure analysis is the process of collecting and analyzing data to determine the cause of a failure, often with the goal of determining corrective actions or liability.
According to Bloch and Geitner, ”machinery failures reveal a reaction chain o ...
systems, have become vital to factory operation. These
software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
systems are becoming indispensable for the
manufacturing
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...
system.
However, most of these software systems are only compatible with specific models or specific manufacturers of the FA system. This is because the software system is “
custom made
Custom, customary, or consuetudinary may refer to:
Traditions, laws, and religion
* Convention (norm), a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted rules, norms, standards or criteria, often taking the form of a custom
* Norm (social), a r ...
” depending on the specific special network or protocol. Once this type of application is installed in a factory and if there are no resident
software engineer
Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development.
A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term ''p ...
s for the system, the improvement of the system will stop, the cost-effectiveness of the system will be worsen, and the total value of the system will deteriorate.
Another recent problem in production is the rapid increase of the product demand at the initial stage of the product release. The manufactures will lose the chance of possible
profit
Profit may refer to:
Business and law
* Profit (accounting), the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market
* Profit (economics), normal profit and economic profit
* Profit (real property), a nonpossessory intere ...
if they cannot meet the demand. To cope with the problem, manufacturing industry is trying to achieve the vertical upstart of the production, and high re-usability of both
hardware and software is the key for the goal.
To solve these problems, ORiN was developed as a standard PC application platform.
Outline
ORiN was originally developed as a standard platform for
robot
A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...
applications. Nowadays, ORiN became a manufacturing application program platform for handling wider range of resources including robots and other FA devices like
programmable logic controller
A programmable logic controller (PLC) or programmable controller is an industrial computer that has been ruggedized and adapted for the control of manufacturing processes, such as assembly lines, machines, robotic devices, or any activity tha ...
s (PLC) and
numerical control
Numerical control (also computer numerical control, and commonly called CNC) is the automated control of machining tools (such as drills, lathes, mills, grinders, routers and 3D printers) by means of a computer. A CNC machine processes a pi ...
(NC) systems, or more generic resources like
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...
s and local
file system
In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...
s. ORiN specifications are on software only and are independent from hardware. Therefore, ORiN can be smoothly integrated with other existing technologies only by developing software. By using ORiN, development of manufacture-independent and model-independent application becomes easy.
By utilizing ORiN, various application
software development
Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invol ...
and active multi-vender system construction by third-party companies are expected. In addition, on economy side, increase of manufacturing
competitiveness
In economics, competition is a scenario where different economic firmsThis article follows the general economic convention of referring to all actors as firms; examples in include individuals and brands or divisions within the same (legal) firm ...
, expansion of FA market, advancement of
software industry
The software industry includes businesses for development, maintenance
Maintenance may refer to:
Biological science
* Maintenance of an organism
* Maintenance respiration
Non-technical maintenance
* Alimony, also called ''maintenance ...
in FA, and creation of FA engineering industry are also expected.
Features
ORiN is independent from hardware, and all ORiN specifications are for software. ORiN (Version 2) is composed of the following three key
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...
specifications.
# CAO (Controller Access Object), standard program interface specifications : Specifications to facilitate generalization of application software
# CRD (Controller Resource Definition), standard data schema specifications : Specifications to facilitate
data exchange
Data exchange is the process of taking data structured under a ''source'' schema and transforming it into a ''target'' schema, so that the target data is an accurate representation of the source data.A. Doan, A. Halevy, and Z. Ives.Principles of da ...
between application software
# CAP (Controller Access Protocol), standard
communication protocol
A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics (computer scien ...
: Protocol for communication between FA devices and applications Three types of CAP are defined: CAP (SOAP), e-CAP (HTTP), b-CAP (TCP/UDP).
With these three key standard technologies, ORiN provides following features.
* Unified accessing model and
data representation
Data and information visualization (data viz or info viz) is an interdisciplinary field that deals with the graphic representation of data and information. It is a particularly efficient way of communicating when the data or information is num ...
* Variable and file based access to the resources in the device
* Applicable to various devices in the factory
* No device modification is required for ORiN connection
*
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
data representation to cooperate with other systems
* Easy device access over
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
with simple parameter setup
* Configurable application interface
History
* ORiN project started as a part of standardization activities in Japan Robot Association (JARA).
* With the support from
New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization
The , or NEDO, is Japan's largest public management organization promoting research and development as well as deployment of industrial, energy and environmental technologies. In 2003, NEDO was reorganized as an Independent Administrative Institu ...
(NEDO), ORiN system was developed from 1999 (3 years activity).
* Member companies of JARA participated field robot connection test at
International Robot Exhibition The International Robot Exhibition (IREX) is the largest robot trade fair in the world. It is an event that has been staged once every two years in Tokyo, Japan since 1973 and is organized by the Japan Robot Association (JARA) and the company Nikkan ...
(IREX) in 1999 and 2001. ORiN Version 1.0 was formally created in 2002.
* ORiN Forum was created in 2002 to promote and advance the ORiN standard. (Key members of the Forum: FA device manufacture, software development company, system integrator company, etc.)
* ORiN Forum member companies participated various ORiN field application tests for three years. The test results were reflected to the ORiN Version 2.0 (created in 2005). ORiN2 SDK was released as a supported software product in 2005.
* ORiN application was proposed as an annex of ISO20242-Part4. The DIS of the standard was approved in July 2010.
ORiN related terms
; ORiN SDK:
: ORiN SDK is a software development kit for ORiN Version 1.0, including
RAO, standard providers and development tools. The SDK is used to develop original RAO providers and ORiN applications, and the SDK is also used as ORiN execution environment. ORiN Forum distributes the SDK, but the Forum plans to stop the distribution and
technical support
Technical support (abbreviated as tech support) is a call centre type customer service provided by companies to advise and assist registered users with issues concerning their technical products. Traditionally done on the phone, technical suppor ...
of the SDK at the end of March 2011.
; ORiN2 SDK:
: ORiN 2 SDK is a software development kit for ORiN Version 2.0. The SDK provides standard interface specifications for applications and devices, standard data schema, and standard communication protocol. Development of provider module (extension module) based on the specifications is also possible with the SDK. DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED, a subsidiary of
Denso Corporation, distributes and supports the SDK.
See also
*
Application software
Application may refer to:
Mathematics and computing
* Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks
** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...
*
Architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...
*
Interface (computing)
In computing, an interface is a shared boundary across which two or more separate components of a computer system exchange information. The exchange can be between software, computer hardware, peripheral devices, humans, and combinations of these ...
*
Computer network
A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...
*
Software framework
In computer programming, a software framework is an abstraction in which software, providing generic functionality, can be selectively changed by additional user-written code, thus providing application-specific software. It provides a standard ...
*
Middleware
Middleware is a type of computer software that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue".
Middleware makes it easier for software developers to implement co ...
*
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
External links
ORiN Forum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orin
Industrial computing
2002 establishments in Japan