Finding
Software-defined robots get new skills over the air and are coordinated as fleets, which is what makes humanoids and AMRs economical at scale
A traditional industrial robot runs one program written for one cell, often unchanged for years. Software-defined robots separate hardware from behavior: motion planning and safety envelopes run on a controller, skills come from AI policies that can be updated, and a fleet layer assigns tasks, manages traffic and schedules charging. Agility's Arc platform for Digit humanoids and the orchestration systems behind warehouse AMR fleets are examples.
ROS 2 is the most common open software framework; robot makers add their own stacks and cloud services. Over-the-air skill updates let one robot design serve many tasks, which is the economic case for general-purpose humanoids. See AI in Robotics and Robotic Fleets.
Layers
SDR layers
| Layer | Role | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware | Joints, sensors, battery | Humanoids, AMRs, arms |
| Motion and safety | Planning, collision avoidance, force limits | ISO 10218, ISO/TS 15066 |
| Task and behavior | Skills and AI policies | Vision-language-action models |
| Fleet orchestration | Tasks, traffic, charging | Agility Arc, AMR fleet managers |
| Framework | Middleware and tools | ROS 2 |
Sources
Sources and scope
- Scope
- Software-Defined Robotics
- Sources
- Agility; ROS 2; ISO 10218
- Updated
- October 2026