An ontology construction algorithm for network robot control services

Recently, network robot technologies have been studied intensively because robots controlled by the network can provide services that stand-alone robots cannot. However, there have been no studies that address the important issue of how to avoid duplicate development of service programs. As a solution to this problem, we proposed a program development platform that is independent of individual robots. We proposed to construct ontology about robot control but did not show specific methods of constructing it. In this paper, we propose a specific method of constructing the proposed platform. In this method, various concepts related to the control of a robot are extracted by focusing on a “has-a relationship” and a “is-a relationship” in robot control. Based on this method, we have defined common signals applicable to locomotive functions of a robot. We have applied these signals to two types of robots, and confirmed that they can support the control signals of individual robots. Furthermore, we have developed a service scenario that runs on the proposed platform, and gained a good prospect that the proposed platform will increase program development efficiency.