Exploring the performance of ROS2

Abstract

Middleware for robotics development must meet demanding requirements in real-time distributed embedded systems. The Robot Operating System (ROS), open-source middleware, has been widely used for robotics applications. However, the ROS is not suitable for real-time embedded systems because it does not satisfy real-time requirements and only runs on a few OSs. To address this problem, ROS1 will undergo a significant upgrade to ROS2 by utilizing the Data Distribution Service (DDS). DDS is suitable for real-time distributed embedded systems due to its various transport configurations (e.g., deadline and fault-tolerance) and scalability. ROS2 must convert data for DDS and abstract DDS from its users; however, this incurs additional overhead, which is examined in this study. Transport latencies between ROS2 nodes vary depending on the use cases, data size, configurations, and DDS vendors. We conduct proof of concept for DDS approach to ROS and arrange DDS characteristic and guidelines from various evaluations. By highlighting the DDS capabilities, we explore and evaluate the potential and constraints of DDS and ROS2.