[ros-users] Datalink Toolkit for Remote Operation with High-Latency and Low-Bandwidth Connections

[Karthik Desingh]

Awesome! +1


On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 4:03 PM, Dmitry Berenson <dberenson at cs.wpi.edu>wrote:

> The ARC Lab at WPI is releasing the Datalink Toolkit ROS package, designed
> to for remote operation of a robot over a high-latency and low-bandwidth
> datalink. The package was developed and extensively tested as part of the
> DARPA robotics challenge, though it is not specific to a type of robot.
>
> The package allows the user to easily set up relays and compression
> methods for a single-master system. These relays avoid duplicating data
> sent over the datalink while compressing common datatypes (i.e.
> point-clouds and images) to minimize bandwidth usage.
> The toolkit includes both message-based and service-based relays so that
> data can be sent on-demand or at a specified frequency. The service-based
> relays are more robust in low-bandwidth conditions, guaranteeing the
> synchronization of camera images and camera info messages, and allow more
> reconfiguration while running.
>
> The key features of the package are:
> - Generic relays with integrated rate throttling for all message types
> - Dedicated relays with rate throttling for images and pointclouds
> - Generic service-based relays with integrated rate throttling for all
> message types
> - Dedicated service-based relays with integrated rate throttling for
> images and pointclouds
> - Image resizing and compression using methods from OpenCV and
> image_transport
> - Pointcloud voxel filtering and compression using methods from PCL, Zlib,
> and other algorithms. (Note: pointcloud compression is provided in a
> separate library that can be easily integrated with other projects)
> - Launch files for easy use of the datalink software with RGBD cameras
> - Works with ROS Hydro
>
> Overall performance:
> - Reliable data transfer for a wide range of bandwidths and latencies
> (e.g. at DRC Trials: 1Mb/s - 100 Kb/s bandwidth, 100ms - 1000ms latency)
> - Pointcloud compression >8x depending on compression algorithm (without
> voxel filtering)
> - Pointcloud compression >20x depending on compression algorithm (with
> voxel filtering)
> - Image compression equivalent to image_transport (without image resizing)
> or better (with resizing)
>
> Performance comparison with ROS for image transfer:
> - 1.5x more images/second at 1Mb/s (grayscale image size 320x240)
> - 2x more images/second at 100Kb/s (grayscale image size 320x240)
> - 3x more images/second at 50Kb/s (grayscale image size 320x240)
>
>
> For more information, please see the wiki here:
> https://github.com/WPI-ARC/datalink_toolkit/wiki
>
> Get the package from our git repository here:
> https://github.com/WPI-ARC/datalink_toolkit
>
>
>
> Dmitry Berenson
> Assistant Professor
> Robotics Engineering Program
> Computer Science Department
> Worcester Polytechnic Institute
> http://users.wpi.edu/~dberenson/
>
> _______________________________________________
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> ros-users at lists.ros.org
> http://lists.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users
>
>


-- 
Thanks,
Karthik
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