Real-Time Innovations (RTI) announced the availability of the Connext 6 ROS Middleware Wrapper (RMW) Layer, designed to bring the RTI Connext 6 to the latest release of the Robot Operating System (ROS 2). Robotics software developers can now leverage the ROS 2 ecosystem together with RTI Connext Tools to develop, test, and debug distributed robotics systems.

ROS 2 offers an open-source framework for building robotic systems. Per the company, RTI is the leading supplier of software compliant with the Data Distribution Service (DDS) standard, which provides the connectivity backbone for ROS 2. The new Connext 6 RMW layer now provides an ideal solution by connecting the ROS 2 ecosystem with RTI’s latest software and Connext Tools.

The new Connext RMW layer offers: 

• The flexibility of the ROS 2 platform combined with complete access to RTI Connext tools for improved distributed system visualization and debugging capabilities
• Support for RTI Connext DDS Professional in Connext 6, used for industrial and military robotics applications where reliability and scalability are of paramount importance
• Support for RTI Connext DDS Micro
• Support for future releases of the Connext Product Suite

“The new RMW brings the system-level visibility and monitoring capabilities of Connext DDS to ROS 2,” said Neil Puthuff, Senior Software Integration Engineer at RTI. “It enables advanced tools, such as RTI Admin Console and RTI Monitor to work seamlessly in a ROS 2 environment. No other current RMW offers this level of visibility and we look forward to continuing to help our customers simplify complex system development.”

RTI in Robotics

RTI delivers the connectivity framework for safe, secure, reliable operations in complex, cooperative and autonomous robotics systems. RTI’s software is currently in robotics systems around the world including automotive, medical, manufacturing, aerospace & defense, and more.

Per the company, RTI Connext DDS is active in over 250 autonomous vehicle projects and more than 50 commercial autonomous systems, such as Aptiv, Baidu Apollo, Voyage, and Xpeng Motors. In June 2020, RTI joined the Autoware Foundation, an open alliance for autonomous driving technology, where RTI is leveraging its experience with ROS 2 to help advance the foundation’s Autoware.IO and Autoware.Auto initiatives. RTI is the only DDS vendor to be named an AUTOSAR Development Partner and contributes to the development of the AUTOSAR standard for highly autonomous vehicles. 

RTI Connext DDS can also be found at the core of NASA’s rovers and space robots, leveraged by the European Space Agency’s robotic arm, and implemented in TechnipFMC’s semi-autonomous underwater ROVs. More recently, RTI Connext DDS was used by the collegiate teams entered in the Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) as they participated in the September hackathon, one of several leading up to the IAC final race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on October 23, 2021. 

RTI will be showcasing the Connext RMW Layer at ROSWorld 2020 on November 12 in RTI’s virtual booth here. For more information and to register, please visit: https://roscon.ros.org/world/2020/ 

Join RTI in a one-hour interactive Tech Talk to learn more about the integration between ROS 2 and RTI Connext DDS. Register here. 

The Connext RMW Layer is publicly available at  https://github.com/rticommunity/rmw_connextdds/ under an Apache 2.0 license.

For more information, visit: https://www.rti.com/en/