The Zero-Friction Communication Layer Between ROS2 and Embedded Microcontrollers

Forget the immense complexity of micro-ROS. Get your STM32 talking to ROS2 in under 3 minutes.

Features • Quick Start • Architecture • Documentation • Contributing

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🚀 Why Use This?

Every robotics engineer faces the exact same challenge: "How do I get my microcontroller to talk to my ROS2 PC reliably without going crazy?"

Common solutions like micro-ROS are incredibly powerful but severely over-engineered for simple sensor/actuator bridges. ros2-hardware-bridge provides the ultimate middle ground:

• ⚡ Zero Configuration: No complex build systems, no DDS agents to configure.
• 🛡️ Type Safety: Pre-defined packet structures mapped directly to native ROS2 types (Twist, Pose, Battery, Encoders).
• 🧩 Fault Tolerant: Built-in CRC checksums silently drop noisy serial garbage.
• 🪶 Ultra-Lightweight: The C-firmware library is < 1KB and has zero external dependencies.

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⚡️ Quick Start (Zero-Friction)

Get up and running in 3 commands.

1. ROS2 Host (PC/Raspberry Pi)

Clone and build the package in your ROS2 workspace:

cd ~/ros2_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/EngineerAbdullahBinZafar/ros2-hardware-bridge.git
cd ~/ros2_ws
colcon build --packages-select ros2_hardware_bridge
source install/setup.bash

# Launch the bridge on your serial port
ros2 run ros2_hardware_bridge bridge_node --ros-args -p port:=/dev/ttyACM0

2. Firmware (STM32 / ESP32 / Arduino)

Simply include the single header file ros2_bridge.h and use the serialization functions.

#include "ros2_bridge.h"

// Example: Send battery voltage to ROS2
float voltage = 12.6f;
uint8_t tx_buf[32];

// Serialize data (ID 0x10 = Battery Voltage)
int len = bridge_serialize(0x10, (uint8_t*)&voltage, sizeof(float), tx_buf);

// Transmit via UART (STM32 HAL example)
HAL_UART_Transmit(&huart1, tx_buf, len, 10);

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📐 Architecture

Our custom packet protocol guarantees that your ROS2 ecosystem never sees corrupted data.

graph LR
    subgraph "Embedded System (STM32 / ESP32)"
        style A fill:#03234B,stroke:#fff,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff
        style B fill:#03234B,stroke:#fff,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff
        A[Firmware Logic] -->|Raw Sensor Data| B[ros2_bridge.h]
        B -->|CRC Packed Serial| C((UART / Serial))
    end
    
    C <==>|USB / Serial Cable| D((Serial / USB))
    
    subgraph "ROS2 Host (PC / Pi / Jetson)"
        style E fill:#22314E,stroke:#fff,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff
        style F fill:#22314E,stroke:#fff,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff
        style G fill:#22314E,stroke:#fff,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff
        style H fill:#22314E,stroke:#fff,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff
        D <==>|CRC Packed Serial| E[bridge_node.py]
        E -->|Publish Twist| F[/cmd_vel/]
        E -->|Publish Float32| G[/hw/battery/]
        E -->|Publish Int32| H[/hw/encoder/]
    end

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📦 Supported Message IDs

Packet ID	Description	ROS2 Topic Name	Standard Data Type
0x01	Velocity Command	/cmd_vel	geometry_msgs/Twist
0x10	Battery Voltage	/hw/battery	std_msgs/Float32
0x11	Encoder Ticks	/hw/encoder	std_msgs/Int32

(Need more messages? See Contributing to easily add your own!)

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🤝 Contributing

We want to make this the universal standard for simple ROS2 hardware interfacing.

1. Read our Contributing Guidelines and Code of Conduct.
2. Fork the repository.
3. Submit a Pull Request.

High-Priority Bounties:

• Adding support for sensor_msgs/Imu and sensor_msgs/LaserScan.
• High-performance C++ implementation of the ROS2 host node.

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📄 License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.

👤 Author

Developed with passion by Engineer Abdullah Bin Zafar. If this project saved you hours of debugging micro-ROS, consider dropping a ⭐!