Motivation – OPC UA is an open, platform-independent standard for industrial communication that is particularly suitable for describing industrial robots thanks to its modelable structure. However, the corresponding Robotics Companion Specification (CS) is currently only in the early stages of development. URDF is an XML-based format for modeling robots in the Robot Operating System (ROS) and contains comprehensive information on structure and kinematics. Since both formats are based on XML, structured mapping between URDF and OPC UA appears useful for converting existing models into standardized OPC UA structures.

Objective – The aim of this work is to analyze and compare the modeling concepts of URDF and OPC UA and to develop a mapping between the two formats. Based on this, the OPC UA Robotics CS will be extended to include relevant URDF structures. Implementation and validation will be carried out using a prototype demonstrator in the research laboratory.