Robot Description Format

Robot description formats, such as the widely used Unified Robot Description Format (URDF), aim to standardize the representation of robots for simulation, design, and control. Current research focuses on improving URDF's capabilities, addressing limitations like handling complex linkages and improving its interoperability across different software platforms and workflows, including automated conversion between various kinematic representations. This standardization effort is crucial for accelerating robot development, facilitating efficient data exchange between design and simulation tools, and ultimately enabling more rapid deployment of robots in various applications. The development of improved tools and datasets to support URDF and related formats is a key area of ongoing work.