Mobile robots from rival makers get one ISO language for shared floors
ISO 21423 sets out how industrial mobile robots, fleet managers and site systems such as lifts and doors exchange data. Robot makers and fleet-software vendors still have to build it into their products
- ISO 21423:2026 is edition 1 and runs to 85 pages
- It covers manufacturing, laboratory, pharmaceutical, warehousing, distribution and logistics sites, and excludes consumer, medical, military and public-road use
- A3 sells the document for $373 (£278), or $320 (£239) to its members
Until now, a site running robots from two suppliers has depended on each vendor supporting the other’s interface, or on VDA 5050 where both had adopted it. A published ISO protocol gives a buyer a reference to name in a tender, so a second robot supplier could join a floor without replacing the first fleet manager. Compliance is voluntary, so the effect depends on how many robot makers and fleet-software vendors ship support for it.
“Many leading industrial users of mobile robots have asked for an interoperability standard for years.”Carole Franklin, director of standards development, robotics, A3
The Association for Advancing Automation (A3), a robotics trade body based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, announced on 2 November the publication of ISO 21423:2026, a new international standard for how industrial mobile robots from different vendors communicate in the same facility. ISO lists it as published in October 2026.
The standard was written by ISO’s robotics committee, TC 299. It specifies how robots, fleet managers and other equipment exchange information and request actions: robots can share their location, speed, direction, condition, tasks and availability. It also covers machines the robots tend, enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools and building systems such as lifts, automated doors and alarms. It sets no safety or navigation requirements.
Mixed fleets already have one industry route: VDA 5050, an open interface between mobile robots and a central fleet control, written by the German automotive association VDA with the machinery body VDMA and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. ISO 21423 is an ISO standard, which A3 notes can be adopted in any country. Fleet-software company InOrbit released OpenRobOps, an open-source platform it says includes a reference implementation of the standard, on 15 September, A3 reported.
A3 says the standard is the first outside robot safety that it has helped produce, and that a common protocol is expected to increase competition among robot suppliers.
Sources
- Association for Advancing Automation, “New ISO Interoperability Standard Helps Mobile Robots from Different Vendors Work Together”, press release, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2 November 2026. https://www.automate.org/robotics/news/new-iso-interoperability-standard-helps-mobile-robots-from-different-vendors-work-together
- ISO, “ISO 21423:2026 Robotics – Industrial mobile robots – Communications and interoperability”, standard page, accessed 3 November 2026. https://www.iso.org/standard/86749.html
- Robotics & Automation News, “New ISO standard enables mobile robots from different vendors to work together”, 2 November 2026. https://roboticsandautomationnews.com/2026/11/02/new-iso-standard-enables-mobile-robots-from-different-vendors-to-work-together/106635/
- A3, Aaron Prather, “The Robot Industry Is Finally Getting a Common Language”, 22 September 2026. https://www.automate.org/robotics/industry-insights/the-robot-industry-is-finally-getting-a-common-language/aph
- VDA and VDMA, VDA 5050 repository, version 3.0.0, accessed 3 November 2026. https://github.com/VDA5050/VDA5050
- European Central Bank, euro foreign exchange reference rates, 3 November 2026. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/eurofxref/eurofxref-daily.xml
