This presentation provides an example of the mixed-critical ROS2 stack implementation based on VxWorks RTOS, embedded Linux, and hypervisor from Wind River. Turtlebot3 was selected as a robotic demo platform controlled by the SBC (single board computer) that runs a Hypervisor with several guest OS instances. We demonstrate a hardware-agnostic approach by utilizing two different SBC HW platforms: Xilinx-based ARM board and Intel UP2 board. The hypervisor provides a separation of safety from non-safety and real-time from best-effort applications and allows us to build a mixed-critical system using multicore SBCs. One of the guest OSes is VxWorks - very few solutions available on the market which is already fulfilling safety and real-time requirements. ROS2 dashing release and turtlebot3 ROS2 middleware were ported to the VxWorks. On top, we run a collision-avoidance ROS2 application. Embedded Linux partition serves as a communication gateway to the external world and provides an example of a non-critical software stack. We demonstrate that if the non-critical guest OS fails and gets rebooted the safety-critical part still runs and performs its control functions. The source code of this demo is available on lab.windriver.com.

1. Turtlebot3: VxWorks running ROS2
as a real-time guest OS on Hypervisor
Andrei Kholodnyi, Principal Technologist, Wind River,
Patrick Deiber, Senior Engineering Specialist, Wind River

2. CHEMICAL SECTOR COMMERCIAL BUILDING SECTOR COMMUNICATIONS SECTOR
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EMERGENCY SERVICES SECTOR ENERGY SECTOR
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MEDICAL SECTOR
IT SECTOR
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2 © 2019 WIND RIVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

3. NASA
MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC
Our software runs all these robots

4. 4 © 2019 WIND RIVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Before we start: some definitions

5. 5 © 2019 WIND RIVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Robot Operating System (ROS)
The Robot Operating System (ROS) is a flexible framework for writing robot software. It is a collection of
tools, libraries, and conventions that aim to simplify the task of creating complex and robust robot behavior
across a wide variety of robotic platforms.
ROS is licensed under an open source, BSD license
The Robonaut 2
aboard the ISS
runs ROS
ROS Melodic
Morenia
Released
ROS-Industrial
Consortium kicks off
2007 ... 2013 2014 2015 ... 2019 2020
ROS at Willow
Garage
ROS2 alpha
released
ROS2
Dashing
First LTS
release
ROS2 Foxy
(May 2020)
Next LTS
release

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Turtlebot 3 (Affordable modular ROS2 platform)
360 LIDAR for SLAM & Navigation
Scalable structure
Single Board Computer
Raspberry Pi
OpenCR ARM Cortex M7
Dynamixel x 2 for Wheels
2 for Wheels
Li Battery

7.  32/64 bits on Arm/Intel/MIPS/PowerPC
 Proprietary real-time OS, POSIX PSE52
 Kernel/user space separation, user space optional
 C/C++11/14, possible to develop kernel C++ modules and user apps
 Safety certifiable: DO-178, ISO 26262, IEC 61508
 Toolchain LLVM 8, Dinkumware C/C++ libs
 Proprietary build system
 Kernel shell
 Eclipse-based IDE, Windows/Linux hosts
WHAT IS VXWORKS RTOS?

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App
OS
Type 1 and Type 2 hypervisors (both run VMs)
App
VM (OS)
Hardware
OT / Type 1
Embedded
Hypervisor
App
OS
App
VM (OS)
Hardware
IT / Type 2
IT Hypervisor
(Linux, Windows,
vmware …)
OS
Baremetal
OS

9. 9 © 2019 WIND RIVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
What is mixed-criticality (and ROS2 in particular)

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ROS2 on WRLinux
Option 1
WRLinux
HW with Multi-
core CPU
App 1 App N
WR safety
certifiable OS
WR non-
safety OS
WR FOSS
Products
• soft-RT capable
• non-safety
• TSN (time sensitive networking)
Properties set #1

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ROS2 on VxWorks
Option 2
WR safety
certifiable OS
WR non-
safety OS
WR FOSS
Products
VxWorks
RTOS
HW with Multi-
core CPU
App 1 App N
• hard-RT
• non-safety
• TSN
Properties set #2

12. 12 © 2019 WIND RIVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
ROS2 on safety VxWorks
WR safety
certifiable OS
WR non-
safety OS
WR FOSS
Products
VxWorks
RTOS
HW with Multi-
core CPU
Critical
App 1
Critical
App N
Option 3
• hard-RT
• Safety
• TSN
Properties set #3

13. 13 © 2019 WIND RIVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
ROS2 on Hypervisor
Hardware with Multi-core CPU
Option 4
WR safety
certifiable OS
WR non-
safety OS
WR FOSS
Products
WRLinux
App 1 App N
VxWorks
RTOS
Legacy
Framework
Legacy
App 1
Critical
App 1
Critical
App N
• hard-RT
• Safety
• TSN
• soft-RT capable
• non-safety
Legacy
App N
Wind River Virtualization Platform (Hypervisor)
Get Mixed Properties
Add Hypervisor

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ROS2 on Hypervisor
Hardware with Multi-core CPU
Opti
on 4
WR safety
certifiable OS
WR non-
safety OS
WR FOSS
Products
WRLinux
App 1 App N
VxWorks
RTOS
Legacy
Framework
Legacy
App 1
Critical
App 1
Critical
App N
• hard-RT
• Safety
• TSN
• soft-RT capable
• non-safety
Legacy
App N
Wind River Virtualization Platform (Hypervisor)
Get Mixed Properties
Add Hypervisor

15. VM
VxWorks Control
VxWorks
ROS2
Sensing Control Actuation
Edge VxWorks Control
VxWorks
ROS2
Sensing Actuation
VxWorks
ROS2
Control
TSN
Case 1: Decoupling control from sensing and actuation
VM
WRLinux
ROS2
ML App
Hypervisor

16. VM VM VMMultiple HW components
OS1
FW1
App1
Consolidated Platform
Hypervisor
Case 2: HW Consolidation
HW1
OS2
FW2
App2
HW2
OS3
FW3
App3
HW3 Multicore HW
OS1
FW1
App1
OS2
FW2
App2
OS3
FW3
App3

17. VM VM VMMultiple SW components
OS
FW
App1
Safety Separation Platform
Hypervisor
Case 3: SW Separation
Multicore HW
App2 App3
Multicore HW
OS1
FW1
App1
OS2
FW2
App2
OS3
FW3
App3

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TurtleBot3 Burger
Dashboard
Wired or
USB Wireless
UP2 or NUC
(Ubuntu18.04 LTS)
WLAN router
HDMI
DP
USB Wireless
Demo

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TurtleBot3 Burger
USB2Serial
PWM
LiDaR
OpenCR
Wired or
USB Wireless
UP2 or NUC
(Ubuntu18.04 LTS)
WLAN router
HDMI
DP
USB Wireless
Mars XU3 / ST3 (ZynqMP)
(HVP + Vx + Lx)
UP2 (IA)
(HVP + Vx + Lx)
SBC
OR
USB2Serial
Dashboard
Demo

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192.168.1.10
vm1
PMU0
+
Python / LED
non-critical
Turtlebot3 Burger Architecture on SBC
Hardware
Core 0 Core 1 Core 2 Core 3
Helix Virtualization Platform (Hypervisor)
vmlinux
Web Server + PMU3
vnet0_rosIf
10.0.0.1
vnic1
10.0.0.3
LAN/
WLAN
Wind River Linux
vconsole7
SDHC1UART
vm2
ROS2 + LiDaR / OpenCR + PMU1 / PMU2
VxWorks
vm0
“rootOS”
VxWorks VxWorks
vnic7
10.0.0.8
vconsole1vconsole0
USBGPIO
vnic0
10.0.0.2
Dashboard

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vm2 Content - ROS2 on VxWorks runing control function
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros2/ros2/release-latest/ros2.repos
Core 1 Core 2
vm2
ROS2 + LiDaR / OpenCR + PMU1 / PMU2
VxWorks
ROS2 dependencies: ASIO, tinyxml2, OpenCV
LLVM C++11/C++14
VxWorks SR630
Turtlebot3 ROS2 packages
Python 3.8
Cmake / autotools build primitives
Intel 64bit / ARM64
POSIX
ROS2 Obstacle avoidance app
TB3 LiDAR driver TB3 OpenCR driver

22. 22 © 2019 WIND RIVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
192.168.1.10
vm1
PMU0
+
Python / LED
non-critical
Reboot vm1, vm2 is still operational
Hardware
Core 0 Core 1 Core 2 Core 3
Helix Virtualization Platform (Hypervisor)
vmlinux
Web Server + PMU3
vnet0_rosIf
10.0.0.1
vnic1
10.0.0.3
LAN/
WLAN
Wind River Linux
vconsole7
SDHC1UART
vm2
ROS2 + LiDaR / OpenCR + PMU1 / PMU2
VxWorks
vm0
“rootOS”
VxWorks VxWorks
vnic7
10.0.0.8
vconsole1vconsole0
USBGPIO
vnic0
10.0.0.2
Dashboard

23. 23 © 2019 WIND RIVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
192.168.1.10
vm1
PMU0
+
Python / LED
non-critical
Reboot vmlinux, vm2 is still operational
Hardware
Core 0 Core 1 Core 2 Core 3
Helix Virtualization Platform (Hypervisor)
vmlinux
Web Server + PMU3
vnet0_rosIf
10.0.0.1
vnic1
10.0.0.3
LAN/
WLAN
Wind River Linux
vconsole7
SDHC1UART
vm2
ROS2 + LiDaR / OpenCR + PMU1 / PMU2
VxWorks
vm0
“rootOS”
VxWorks VxWorks
vnic7
10.0.0.8
vconsole1vconsole0
USBGPIO
vnic0
10.0.0.2
Dashboard

24. 24 © 2019 WIND RIVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
192.168.1.10
vm1
PMU0
+
Python / LED
non-critical
Pause vm2, TB3 contol stops
Hardware
Core 0 Core 1 Core 2 Core 3
Helix Virtualization Platform (Hypervisor)
vmlinux
Web Server + PMU3
vnet0_rosIf
10.0.0.1
vnic1
10.0.0.3
LAN/
WLAN
Wind River Linux
vconsole7
SDHC1UART
vm2
ROS2 + LiDaR / OpenCR + PMU1 / PMU2
VxWorks
vm0
“rootOS”
VxWorks VxWorks
vnic7
10.0.0.8
vconsole1vconsole0
USBGPIO
vnic0
10.0.0.2
Dashboard

25. 25 © 2019 WIND RIVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Live Demo at 3A-233 by our partner Enclustra

26. 26 © 2019 WIND RIVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Conclusions
 ROS2 offers a possibilty to develop complex autonomous applications
(mobile robotics).
 Important to consider proven safety-compliant solution for underlying
layers (operating system).
 Safety and real-time OS running ROS2 stack under hypervisor allows to
build flexible mixed-critical mobile robotics solutions

27. 27 © 2019 WIND RIVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
https://labs.windriver.com
Platform for Innovation

28. 28 © 2019 WIND RIVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Team
 Ka Kay Achacoso
 Patrick Deiber
 Torsten Demke
 Mihai Dragusu
 Andrei Kholodnyi
 Dan Milea
 Vlad Lungu

29. ™