[ros-users] [Discourse.ros.org] [General] Why don't we use ROS?

[Alexander Rössler]

Long story short, Machinekit would replace the "Arduino part" in current setups. Namely, everything that relates to low-level motion control such as for example servo loops.

As for distributed setups with "smart" motor drives you should neither use ROS nor any other best effort based system. For this part, I would suggest using CAN, FlexRay or any other Fieldbus system designed for this task.

How would Machinekit come into play in this scenario? Well, one can add a driver (a well defined software component in Machinekit) for the XYZ bus system, proprietary protocol or whatever necessary to control the drives.

Why would you do this? That would make replacing the entry-level PWM based RC servos with industrial grade closed-loop servos controlled via a Fieldbus as easy as pie. Think about a small prototype or educational robot vs. a big industrial robot out in the field. Imagine both driven by the same HAL layer without requiring to rewrite the whole low-level system.





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