Global standards organization ASTM International announced a broadened scope of its robotics, automation, and autonomous systems committee (F45). The committee was previously known as the driverless automatic guided industrial vehicles committee.

The updated committee scope will now address standards development for automatic, automated, and autonomous vehicles, robotic arms and manipulators, and sensors used in these systems, for smart infrastructures, advanced manufacturing, logistics, and other automation.

“The expansion beyond driverless industrial vehicles will allow the committee to develop standards across the entire advanced manufacturing spectrum,” said Roger Bostelman, committee chair and research associate at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. “We see the new focus not only continuing the development of performance-based standards for driverless industrial vehicles, but also safety and performance of smart industrial devices and facilities.”

The committee will continue to develop standards for driverless automatic guided industrial vehicles through a new subcommittee. Additional subcommittees focus on environmental effects, docking and navigation, object detection and protection, and communication and integration. 

“Retooling the committee’s focus beyond mobile robots will allow us to work on standards that address the whole end-to-end robotic automation in a facility or industry,” said Bob Holmberg, executive committee member and robotics architect at Dexterity. “ASTM International is continuing to evolve its standards development in order to meet the needs of this emerging technology.”

The committee will hold its first meeting since expanding the scope of its standards development October 26-28, 2021. For more information, please contact ASTM F45 Staff Manager Nora Nimmerichter at nnimmerichter@astm.org. ASTM welcomes participation in the development of its standards. Become a member of the committee at www.astm.org/JOIN.

Media Inquiries: Jaime Martorana, tel +1.610.832.9796; jmartorana@astm.org
Committee Contact: Nora Nimmerichter, tel +1.610.832.9815; nnimmerichter@astm.org   

Release #11266

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