Glossary
Robot Operating System (ROS)
Robot Operating System (ROS)
Terms related to the middleware framework and ecosystem of tools, libraries, and conventions for building complex robotic software systems. Target: Robotics Software Engineers, System Integrators.
Robot Operating System (ROS)
The Robot Operating System (ROS) is an open-source middleware framework providing a collection of software libraries, tools, and conventions designed to simplify the development of complex robotic systems across heterogeneous hardware platforms.
ROS 2
ROS 2 is the second generation of the Robot Operating System, featuring a redesigned architecture built on the Data Distribution Service (DDS) for real-time performance, multi-robot support, and production-grade security and reliability.
ROS Node
A ROS Node is the fundamental executable process within a ROS graph that performs computation, communicating with other nodes via topics, services, actions, or parameters.
ROS Topic
A ROS Topic is a named bus over which nodes exchange asynchronous, many-to-many messages using a publish-subscribe communication model.
ROS Service
A ROS Service is a synchronous, request-response communication mechanism where a client node sends a request to a server node and blocks until it receives a reply.
ROS Action
A ROS Action is an asynchronous communication interface built on topics that allows a client to request a long-running goal from a server and receive periodic feedback and a final result.
ROS Message (.msg)
A ROS Message is a strictly typed data structure, defined in a `.msg` file, that is used for serialization and deserialization when publishing to topics or calling services.
ROS Parameter
A ROS Parameter is a configuration value, stored on a parameter server, that nodes can dynamically retrieve, set, and monitor at runtime.
ROS Launch System
The ROS Launch System is a tool for configuring and starting multiple ROS nodes, setting parameters, and remapping topic names from a single XML or Python launch file.
ROS Bag
A ROS Bag is a file format for recording and playing back ROS topic data, enabling offline debugging, analysis, and simulation of robotic system behavior.
ROS Graph
The ROS Graph is a peer-to-peer network of ROS nodes, topics, services, and actions that represents the runtime communication topology of a robotic system.
ROS Package
A ROS Package is the primary unit for organizing software in ROS, containing libraries, nodes, datasets, configuration files, and a manifest (`package.xml`) defining its dependencies.
ROS Client Library (RCL)
A ROS Client Library (RCL) is a language-specific API, such as `rclcpp` for C++ or `rclpy` for Python, that provides the core programming interface for creating ROS 2 nodes and utilizing its communication patterns.
ROS 2 DDS (Data Distribution Service)
ROS 2 DDS refers to the use of the Data Distribution Service (DDS) standard as the underlying middleware layer in ROS 2, providing decentralized discovery, configurable Quality of Service (QoS), and real-time data exchange.
ROS 2 Quality of Service (QoS)
ROS 2 Quality of Service (QoS) is a set of configurable policies—such as reliability, durability, and deadline—that govern the behavior of communication between nodes, allowing tuning for systems ranging from best-effort to strict real-time.
ROS 2 Executor
A ROS 2 Executor is a processing engine within a node that manages the execution of subscriptions, services, timers, and action servers by spinning callbacks in a single-threaded or multi-threaded manner.
ROS 2 Lifecycle Node
A ROS 2 Lifecycle Node is a managed node that follows a well-defined state machine (Unconfigured, Inactive, Active, Finalized), allowing for systematic startup, error recovery, and shutdown of complex system components.
ROS 2 TF2 (Transform Library)
ROS 2 TF2 is a library that tracks and manages multiple coordinate frames over time, allowing nodes to transform data (e.g., points, vectors) between different reference frames, such as from a sensor frame to a robot's base frame.
URDF (Unified Robot Description Format)
The Unified Robot Description Format (URDF) is an XML file format used in ROS to describe the kinematic and dynamic properties of a robot, including its links, joints, sensors, and visual/collision geometry.
ROS 2 Navigation2
ROS 2 Navigation2 is the official navigation framework for ROS 2, providing a behavior tree-based system for mobile robot localization, path planning, and control to autonomously move from one location to another.
ROS 2 Control (ros2_control)
ROS 2 Control is a framework for managing and abstracting robot hardware interfaces (e.g., joints, sensors) and controllers (e.g., position, velocity) to provide a unified real-time control layer.
Micro-ROS
Micro-ROS is a robotics framework that brings the core concepts of ROS 2 to deeply embedded microcontrollers, enabling real-time communication with larger ROS 2 systems via a Micro-ROS Agent.
ROS Bridge (ros1_bridge)
A ROS Bridge, such as the `ros1_bridge`, is a bidirectional communication gateway that translates messages and services between ROS 1 and ROS 2 networks, facilitating migration and interoperability.
ROS 2 Domain ID
A ROS 2 Domain ID is a network segmentation integer (set via the `ROS_DOMAIN_ID` environment variable) that isolates ROS 2 graphs, preventing nodes in different domains from discovering or communicating with each other.
ROS 2 Security (SROS 2)
ROS 2 Security, implemented through the SROS 2 utilities, provides a framework for securing ROS 2 communications with authentication, encryption, and access control using DDS Security plugins and X.509 certificates.
Colcon Build Tool
Colcon is the primary command-line build tool for ROS 2, used to build multiple packages in a workspace, handling dependencies, and invoking underlying build systems like CMake or Python setuptools.
ROS 2 Component
A ROS 2 Component is a node packaged as a shared library that can be dynamically loaded into a component container at runtime, enabling process composition for improved performance and resource management.
ROS 2 Launch Argument
A ROS 2 Launch Argument is a variable defined in a launch file that can be set from the command line or programmatically to parameterize the configuration of nodes and their behaviors at startup.
ROS 2 Parameter Event
A ROS 2 Parameter Event is a notification published by the parameter service when a parameter's value is changed, allowing nodes to dynamically reconfigure their behavior in response to runtime configuration updates.
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