The launch ceremony for the M-Robots community. (Photo/Shenzhen Kaihong Digital Industry Development Co., Ltd.)
Chongqing - China recently launched its first open-source community for a full-stack commercial robot operating system based on OpenHarmony, with research institutes and companies from Chongqing among its founding contributors.
The M-Robots community is designed to support China's shift from standalone robots to multi-robot collaboration and from fixed applications to AI-powered systems operating in open, real-world environments. It will also promote shared technologies, common software platforms and closer collaboration across the robotics industry.
Led by Shenzhen Kaihong Digital Industry Development Co., Ltd., the community brings together universities, research institutes, robotics companies and developers. The Chongqing Research Institute of Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) and Chongqing Tiangang Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. are among its founding members, serving on the community's inaugural working committee.
The HIT Chongqing Research Institute is supporting the initiative with iiRobotOS, an intelligent real-time operating system for industrial robots developed with Tiangang Intelligent. Developed on the OpenHarmony open-source platform, it is described as China's first industrial robot operating system of its kind and the first major national-level robotics software project delivered in Chongqing.
OpenHarmony is an open-source operating system project led by the OpenAtom Foundation. Originally derived from Huawei's HarmonyOS initiative, it is designed for a wide range of smart devices, including industrial equipment, IoT devices and robots, providing a common software platform for connected systems.
iiRobotOS integrates robot software, hardware and sensors into a single operating platform, enabling real-time control, device connectivity and coordination between multiple robots. The system can simultaneously control 100 motors with a response time of 125 microseconds, while its domestically developed controller is designed to replace imported controllers used in robotic arms.
It has been validated by leading Chinese robotics companies, including ROKAE, Huashu Robot, SIASUN and EFORT, and currently supports five types of industrial robot systems.
According to the HIT Chongqing Research Institute, the M-Robots community builds on the institute's long-term research in OpenHarmony-based robot operating systems, multi-robot coordination and autonomous equipment.
Together with Tiangang Intelligent, it plans to advance technologies such as collaboration between different types of robots, intelligent device connectivity, real-time control and scenario-based applications, while helping expand the industrial adoption of domestically developed robot operating systems.
(Wanqing Lu, as an intern, also contributed to the report.)