OFERA: Open Framework for Embedded Robot Applications

Project Information

OFERA

Grant agreement ID: 780785

DOI

10.3030/780785

Project closed

EC signature date 20 December 2017

Start date 1 January 2018

End date 31 December 2021

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 3 877 451,43

EU contribution

€ 2 940 920,00

Coordinated by

PROYECTOS Y SISTEMAS DE MANTENIMIENTO SL
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - OFERA (OFERA: Open Framework for Embedded Robot Applications)

Reporting period: 2019-07-01 to 2021-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The project report is addressed in the corresponding deliverables, containing extended information about the progress of the project. Here we will describe the main points briefly.

Micro-ROS is an implementation of the latest version of the Robot Operating System (ROS) for microcontrollers.

It is important for society, as nowadays a robot is a set of sensors and actuators, many of them based on microcontrollers. ROS is the de facto standard robotic framework, and while it has been attempted before, until micro-ROS, there was no good support for microcontrollers.

The main objectives of Micro-ROS are:
a) Create a Platform for seamless integration of resource-constrained devices in the robot ecosystem: micro-ROS
b) Demonstrate the micro-ROS platform with a representative set of Robotic applications
c) Drive the adoption of the Micro-ROS platform.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the 4-year project, the consortia fully accomplished the goals of the project:

a) Micro-ROS was released and demonstrated in many events, and now the consortia is focused on maintaining and upgrading the framework. Micro-ROS has been released for every major release of ROS2 since the ROS 2 Crystal Clemmys (codename ‘crystal’; December 2018), and it is planned to be updated following the ROS 2 releases calendar.

b) The consortia has created a set of 5 demonstrators for different use cases: Drones, Sensors and modular Arms, Autonomous lawnmowers, Smart warehouses, and context information integration. See the corresponding deliverables for more details.

c) During the project the consortia did an intense effort on dissemination, presenting Micro-ROS in the Robotics major events including a very strong presence in the latest ROSCONs, and creating an embedded Working Group within the ROS community with a very good track record of attendees, leading to the creation of a stable Micro-ROS open-source community. Moreover, many important companies have adopted Micro-ROS (Renesas, Robotis, eSOL, Capra Robotics, LG Electronics, HydraSystem or Sideways vehicles…) , and some of them are actively participating in the maintenance of the framework.

A complete list of events and publications can be found in the corresponding deliverable and also on the Micro-ROS website (https://micro-ros.github.io/allposts)

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Micro-ROS is the first Robotic framework supporting microcontrollers and compatible with ROS2.

The major changes compared to "regular" ROS 2 is that micro-ROS uses a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) instead of Linux, and DDS for eXtremely Resource Constrained Environments (DDS-XRCE) instead of classical DDS. Above that, we run the ROS 2 stack! Well, with a few cool improvements for taking advantage of microcontroller-specific details, but largely the same.

Micro-ROS Logo