NEWS By Jim Bentley, Sales Director RTI
Develop and run high-performance, high-precision robotics
Robotics and haptic systems are complex machines of interconnected autonomous, semi-autonomous and/or human controlled modules which often operate in harsh and unpredictable conditions. Terabytes of streaming data need to be processed in real-time for safe, effective operation. Compounding the communication challenges, a human operator often needs to control the robots across very large distances and over unreliable network transports. Proven in robotic operations from the ocean
fl oor to outer space, RTI Connext DDS is the connectivity platform to develop and run next-generation, high-precision robotics. It integrates a wide range of demanding robotic system requirements in one real- time data connectivity framework. Robotic and haptic systems built on this platform are resilient, self-forming and self-healing with no single point of failure. Built-in security based on the proven DDS Security standard provides for confi dentiality, authentication, non-repudiation and access control, keeping robots safe from security breaches. Solving the challenges of complex, cooperative, and autonomous robotics systems, Connext DDS helps to: •
• RTI in Robotics
RTI Connext DDS seamlessly integrates robotic subsystems so that these subsystems can operate as a single integrated solution: reliably, safely and in real time.
Scale the system with decentralised peer-to-peer communication and data- centric architectures
Secure the network with a fi ne-grained security architecture that is transparent to application software, making it easy to develop, deploy and maintain
•
Establish reliable communication over multiple physical networks and transport protocols, including intermittent and wireless channels
•
Achieve physics-speed real-time response with low latency and high- bandwidth performance that is tunable using extensive Quality of Service (QoS) settings
•
Create modular architectures that support multiple nodes, multiple development teams, and future expansion of the system with a data- centric DDS compliant databus
From human controlled to fully autonomous
This data connectivity framework is used to connect and run interconnected
human controlled, collaborative, and fully- autonomous robotic systems. Its databus seamlessly distributes data in motion, allowing robotic subsystems to work as a single integrated solution, reliably, securely and in real time.
Persistent connectivity with real-time QOS
Robotic systems often operate in remote locations. Connext DDS delivers low latency with high throughput through real-time QoS, eliminating system bottlenecks and ensuring optimal performance even with fl uctuating operating conditions. It offers reliable systems operation over low-bandwidth communication links with long transmission delays. Systems are self-forming and self- healing with no single point of failure. This framework runs across high-speed networks, Wi-Fi, radio and/or satellite links and provides tools to fi ne-tune the deployment for specifi c networking environments. Human operators remotely control motion and behaviour to large teams of remote robots over very large distances, through unreliable network transports. The RTI Routing Service provides bridging between different network domains and technologies with zero programming. It includes a Persistence Service that maintains system-critical confi guration
data on disk in the event of network disruptions.
ROS integration and migration pathway
RTI offers a natural migration path from ROS-based systems to architectures that use Connext DDS, either natively or with production-ready connectivity to a ROS2 architecture. Developers can integrate the original ROS ecosystem of drivers, applications and tools with production track development in native-DDS systems. By moving directly to the DDS platform, users gain optimised performance, fi ne-grained QoS control, world- class security and data modelling; simplifi ed architecture and API layers; and standards- based interfaces.
CONNEXT DDS in action
Enabling human-to-robot communication in outer space NASA’s Human Exploration Telerobotics (HET) project takes routine, highly repetitive, dangerous or long-duration tasks out of human hands and improves the way humans live and work in space. NASA relies on Connext DDS because of its inherent tolerance of time delay and loss of signal that occur with signals sent across the vast distances separating
MARCH 2024 | ELECTRONICS TODAY 5
Copyright: iStock
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