[ros-users] Gateway Model for Multimaster

[Daniel Stonier]

Hi all,

We've just finished prototyping the first version of the multimaster
gateway model (think of LAN gateways, except our gateways are for
autonomous ROS systems instead of LANs).

It is intended to be a first step to getting a concrete building block
working upon which others can design their own multimaster framework on
top. Since there seems to be several different design patterns to
multimaster, getting this fundamental block in place seemed like a good
choice.

The gateway merely provides ways to interact between two ros systems (focus
is on ros systems here, not masters, which are intentionally hidden behind
the gateway). You can *flip* connections (pubs, subs, services,
action_clients or action_servers) from your local ros system to a remote
gateway if it is not firewalling you. Alternatively you can
*advertise*local connections which can be freely
*pulled* into remote systems by their gateways. i.e. you can control where
your connections go, or you can publicly allow remote systems to choose to
use your connections or not.

Under the hood, it is a bit like MasterSync, probably better thought of as
MasterSync v2. Major differences include no exposed master, auto-discovery,
true multimaster (not two-master), and sharing public interfaces. It
doesn't try and solve the major wireless communication issues yet - we're
hoping to provide input and incorporate what may be soon coming as major
changes in the ros communications system.

More information can be found at:


   - http://ros.org/wiki/rocon_multimaster/Reviews/Gateway Model Proposal -
   review meeting
   - http://redmine.robotconcert.org/projects/multimaster/wiki/Gateway_Model -
   overview
   - http://ros.org/wiki/rocon_multimaster
   - http://ros.org/wiki/rocon_gateway - notes and tutorials here
   - http://ros.org/wiki/rocon_gateway_graph/Tutorials/Gateway%20Graph - an
   rqt plugin only working in unstable groovy, shows the multimaster gateway
   graph ala rxgraph style.


We're rolling latest debs for fuerte and groovy right now - expect to see
0.1.5+ hitting the repositories soon. Source installation directions are
here <http://ros.org/wiki/rocon_multimaster/Tutorials/Installation>.

If you're interested in using it, we'd welcome any feedback/bug reports.

Also, thanks to Piyush at Austin University of Texas who worked at in the
design, development and testing and others who also provided input.

Cheers,
Daniel/Jihoon (Yujin Robot).
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