ROS Adapter

The ROS (Robot Operating System) data adapter subscribes to ROS topics and streams sensor/actuator data into the DDB topic structure. It connects to a running ROS master and receives real-time messages from any configured ROS-enabled device.

Overview

This adapter integrates with existing ROS1-based robotic systems, subscribing to live ROS topics and publishing their data as key-value pairs under the DDB namespace. It handles message deserialization, byte-data filtering for large arrays (e.g., images), and topic name mapping.

Property	Value
Adapter Type	`ros`
Data Source	ROS1 topics
Recommended Topic Family	`historian`
Self-Update	Yes (ROS callback-based)

Configuration Parameters

Parameter	Description
`trial_id`	Trial ID for the ROS device. No spaces or special characters allowed.
`devices`	List of devices to subscribe to.
`devices[].namespace`	Namespace of the device in ROS
`devices[].rostopics`	List of ROS topics to subscribe to for this device
`devices[].attributes`	Attributes of the device. Optional.

Example Configuration

adapter_name: my_ros_adapter

trial_id: "trial_001"
devices:
  device1:
    namespace: "robot_arm"
    rostopics:
      - "/joint_states"
      - "/camera/image_raw"
    attributes:
      manufacturer: "RobotCorp"
      model: "RobotArmX"
      description: "A robotic arm for testing purposes."
  device2:
    namespace: "machine_a"
    rostopics:
      - "/machine_a/status"
    attributes:
      manufacturer: "MachineCorp"
      version: 0.1
      description: "A machine for testing purposes."