Optimization of ROS 2 inter-node communication by dynamic switching for communication mechanisms

Abstract

In the ROS, which is middleware for developing robot control systems, the programs that realize the robot functions are treated as nodes. In ROS 2, the latest version of ROS, communication between nodes is realized by DDS, and several vendors provide DDS implementations with different characteristics. However, in the current ROS 2, only one DDS implementation can be selected per system. Therefore, it is difficult for all nodes to communicate with each other using the optimal DDS implementation due to characteristics such as data size and communication range. In this research, we propose a mechanism called“DDS Binder”that switches the appropriate DDS implementation for each communication path between nodes. We realized the switching of DDS implementations under the constraint that only one DDS implementation can be used simultaneously in one node, and the latency measurement results showed that the inter-node communication was optimized.