ROS2 adapter functionality

For a full list of Formant telemetry types, see: https://formant.readme.io/docs/how-telemetry-streams-work

For a list of what is currently supported by the Formant ROS2 Adapter:

Basic datapoints

• Numeric (UInt, Int, and Float types) ✔️
• Text (String, Char) ✔️
• Bitset (Bool) ✔️
• Location (NavSatFix) ✔️
• Battery (Battery) ✔️

All other input types will be ingested as JSON.

Input from multiple fields

• Bitset (multiple Bool inputs) ✔️
• Numeric Set (multiple UInt, Int, or Float inputs) ✔️

Rich datapoints

• Point Clouds (PointCloud2, LaserScan) ✔️
• Compressed Images ✔️
• Raw Images (into video) ✔️
• Video clips ❌
• Localization (Map, Odometry, Path, etc.) ❌
• Transform Tree (/tf, /tf_static) ❌

Configuring the ROS2 Adapter

Basic configuration

Edit the file config.json in the formant_ros2_adapter/scripts directory so that it contains each ROS topic name to ingest as telemetry under the "streams" key. e.g.

{
    "streams": [
        {
            "topic": "/cmd_vel"
        },
        {
            "topic": "/rgb/image_raw/compressed"
        },
        {
            "topic": "/depth/points"
        },
        {
            "topic": "/base_scan",
            "stream": "scan"
        }
    ]
}

The full configuration schema is available here.

Topics will automatically be ingested as their corresponding Formant type:

ROS topic type	Formant datapoint type
Bool, message with bool-valued message paths	bitset
Message with numeric-valued message paths	numeric set
Char, String	text
Float, Int, Uint	numeric
NavSatFix	location
LaserScan, PointCloud2	point cloud
CompressedImage	image, video

By default, stream name is automatically configured from the topic. (e.g. "/base/cmd_vel" -> "base.cmd_vel") The "stream" configuration can be set to change the stream name of ingested datapoints manually.

Message path configuration

messagePath and messagePaths can be set to ingest specific values, or multiple values.

{
    "streams": [
        {
            "topic": "/battery",
            "stream": "Battery Voltage"
            "messagePath": "voltage"
            "rate": 1.0
        },
        {
            "formantType": "numericset",
            "topic": "/battery",
            "stream": "Battery Set"
            "messagePaths": ["voltage", "current", "charge"],
            "units": ["volts", "A", "Ah"]
            "rate": 0.5
        },
        {
            "formantType": "bitset",
            "topic": "/RegionOfInterest",
            "messagePaths": ["do_rectify"]
        },
    ]
}

Setting the "formantType" to "numericset" or "bitset" and specifying multiple values in "messagePaths" will ingest multiple fields from a given ROS topic into a single, multi-valued datapoint in Formant.

Setting the "rate" to a value in Hz will allow you to throttle a topic that may be publishing faster than you want it to be ingested on Formant.

Running the adapter

As an Adapter or with the start.sh Script

The repo can either be zipped and configured as an adapter in Formant with "Exec command" ./start.sh, or can be run manually.

Be sure to update this part of the start.sh script to source the proper ROS2 distribution:

source /opt/ros/eloquent/setup.bash  # this adapter is meant to work with any ROS2 distribution eloquent+
# if you use custom messages, source your workspace here

As a ROS2 Package

Choose where you would like to have your workspace if you do not already have one created. If one already exists, skip the first command.

mkdir -p colcon_ws/src

cd colcon_ws/src

git clone <URL for this Repo>

cd ../..

source /opt/ros/<Desired Distro>/setup.bash (this adapter is meant to work with any ROS2 distribution eloquent+)

colcon build OR colcon build --packages-select formant_ros2_adapter if you have other ROS2 packages in your workspace that you don't want to build concurrently.

NOTE: If you have custom messages that are not a part of the same workspace as this ros2-adapter, then source them at this point.

source install/setup.bash

ros2 run formant_ros2_adapter main.py

• NOTE: This is untested with ROS2 Humble
• NOTE: This is untested with fastdds