A Portable Implementation of the Real-Time Publish-Subscribe Protocol for Microcontrollers in Distributed Robotic Applications

Abstract

This paper presents embeddedRTPS, a portable and open source implementation of the Real-Time Publish-Subscribe Protocol (RTPS). RTPS is the underlying protocol for the Data Distribution Service (DDS), which is a standardized middleware that allows for implementing distributed, loosely-coupled applications. DDS is not only the core protocol for the Robot Operating System (ROS) 2, but is also one of the few protocols that are part of the AUTOSAR Adaptive platform. In contrast to the available open-source RTPS implementations, embeddedRTPS is based on FreeRTOS and lightweightIP and targets resource-constrained embedded platforms. Our contribution allows microcontrollers to become independent, first-class participants in distributed automotive and robotic applications. We benchmark our implementation using a consumer-grade STM32 microprocessor as well as an ASIL-D certified, automotive microcontroller.