Optimized data transfer to ROS2 without copies

In the Robot Operating System community, we decided to hold specialized mini-meetups on topics related to robotics in the era of isolation. From now on, each meeting will focus on one topic, which we will discuss in detail online on ZOOM. Therefore, each participant asking questions and leading the discussion is important, be active!

The first topic is devoted to a new trend in robotics – ROS2. We will dive into the technology of efficient data transfer between the software nodes of the robot, while maintaining real time and minimal memory consumption. Roman Sokolkov, a specialist in the development of software for unmanned vehicles, will tell about this.

Soft, which was developed by Bosch for use in vehicle ADAS systems, has come to ROS2 and is available to all roboticists.

Most robots today have high resolution cameras or lidars. To process data from such sensors, computer vision pipelines with a large number of components and minimal processing delay are required. For example, the same frame from a FullHD 60 fps camera must be processed by such components as object detection, segmentation, visual odometry, etc. An uncompressed RGB image is about 6 megabytes. So the processor needs to copy over a gigabyte of memory per second (60 * 6 * 3 = 1080 megabytes per second). And this is subject to the need for only one copy between the components. Unfortunately, without optimization, ROS2 produces about 6-9 copies when passing a single message between nodes.

In ROS1, many people know and use nodelets, is there an alternative in ROS2?

In this Thursday talk, we’ll talk about how software used in the automotive industry helps optimize the performance of ROS2-based robots.

Link to ZOOM broadcast will be in ROS telegram chat. The report starts at 17:00, the approximate duration is 45 minutes, plus time for answers to questions and communication.

Summary of the report:

At the last New Year’s meeting of robotics, there was a heated discussion about which DDS to use in ROS2. We even did a survey:

This time, Roman will reveal this topic in more detail and it will be possible to ask a question about the DDS practice of unmanned vehicles.

Join chat so as not to miss the news and a link to the meeting.

Based on the results of the meeting, the article will be updated and it will be possible to continue a substantive discussion of the report in the comments.

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *