Abstract
This disclosure describes a message protocol by which certified robots, their owners, the sites they work at and the people around them exchange what safety requires: identity, limits, stops, handovers, coordination, evidence and intent. Messages are grouped into classes with strict priority: safety messages (stop, hold, yield and safe-state commands, and hazard notices) always take precedence over coordination messages, which take precedence over operations messages, within declared timing budgets. Every message is signed by its sender's credential and checked locally; a robot refuses unsigned messages and messages outside the sender's declared role. Messages from anyone other than the robot's own safety plane may only tighten the robot's limits, never loosen them; loosening requires an entry anchored in the public registry with the approvals that registry requires. Every robot's stop works without the network: stop commands travel on a dedicated local channel independent of the coordination network, and a robot that loses contact enters the safe state its safe-state map prescribes for its current posture and load. Control passes between autonomy and a person, or between robots, only through an acknowledged handover in which the receiving party confirms it has control before the giving party releases it. At sites shared by robots of different makers and owners, a neutral site coordinator allocates space and right of way by published rules, with every robot keeping the right to refuse anything that would loosen its own limits; no maker's system can command another maker's robot beyond tightening. Robots announce their identity and status to one another and, on request, a summary of their due-diligence record. Robots lodge evidence digests in the registry and seal their recorders on incident messages. Finally, robots in places where people are present signal their next action in plain light, sound or display signals that people can understand without training.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Wang, Edward D. H., "SI Robot Protocol™: A Safety-First Message Protocol for Robots of Different Makers and Owners, in which Safety Messages Always Outrank Operations, Messages from Others Can Only Tighten a Robot's Limits, Every Robot's Stop Works Without the Network, Limits Bind Only When Anchored in a Public Registry, Control Changes Hands Only by Acknowledged Handover, Shared Sites Are Coordinated Without Any Maker Controlling Another's Robots, and People Nearby Are Told in Plain Signals What a Robot Will Do Next", Technical Disclosure Commons, (November 10, 2026)
https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/12955