RGMP-ROS: A real-time ROS architecture of hybrid RTOS and GPOS on multi-core processor

Recently, the open-source robot operating system (ROS) has been growing rapidly in the robotics community. However, the ROS runs on Linux, which does not provide timing guarantees for robot motion. This paper present a hybrid real-time ROS architecture on multi-core processor “RGMP-ROS”, which consists of two parts including the non-real-time subsystem “GPOS (General Operating system)” and the real-time one “RTOS (Real-time Operating system)”. The GPOS is comprised of non-real-time ROS nodes running in Linux, while the RTOS only contains real-time ROS nodes running in Nuttx. To get higher operational efficiency, the RGMP-ROS system is executed by a dual-core processor, one CPU for GPOS and the other for RTOS. The RGMP-ROS has used in the controller of a 6-DOF modular manipulator, and its effectiveness and efficiency are demonstrated by software testing and experiments. The main contributions of the present work lie in the realization of real-time ROS architecture and the application of multi-core processor in the hybrid control of an industrial robot.