ROS 2 System Modes

This repository explores a system modes concept that is implemented for ROS 2 in these packages:

• system_modes_msgs provides the message types and services for system modes
• system_modes provides a library for system mode inference, a mode manager, and a mode monitor
• system_modes_examples implements a simple example
• launch_system_modes launch actions, events, and event handlers for system modes
• test_launch_system_modes launch test for the launch_system_modes` package

For further information, please contact Arne Nordmann or Ralph Lange.

Purpose of the Project

This software is not ready for production use. It has neither been developed nor tested for a specific use case. However, the license conditions of the applicable Open Source licenses allow you to adapt the software to your needs. Before using it in a safety relevant setting, make sure that the software fulfills your requirements and adjust it according to any applicable safety standards, e.g., ISO 26262.

How to Build, Test, Install, and Use

After you cloned this repository into your ROS 2 workspace folder, you may build and install the system_modes package and the system_modes_examples package using colcon: $ colcon build --packages-select-regex system_modes

Have a look at the system_modes_examples documentation to try your installation.

For using this package and designing system modes for your system, please refer to the How to Apply section.

License

ROS 2 System Modes are open-sourced under the Apache-2.0 license. See the LICENSE file for details.

For a list of other open-source components included in ROS 2 system_modes, see the file 3rd-party-licenses.txt.

Quality assurance

The colcon_test tool is used for quality assurances, which includes cpplint, uncrustify, flake8, xmllint and various other tools.

Unit tests based on gtest are located in the ./system_modes/test folder.

Known Issues/Limitations

Please notice the following issues/limitations:

• Currently, (sub-)systems managed by the mode manager are not recognized by the ros2 lifecycle tool (“Node not found”). So to trigger lifecycle transitions in (sub-)systems, you have to go with the ros2 service call tool. Check the system_modes_examples documentation for example calls.
• The Error Handling and Rules feature is still experimental and might be subject to major changes. However, if no rules are specified in the model file, this feature is not used.
• The mode inference and the error handling and rules feature do not work as intended if some of the involved nodes are non-lifecycle nodes.

Acknowledgments

This activity has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement n° 780785).

Contributing

Want to contribute? Great! You can do so through the standard GitHub pull request model. For large contributions we do encourage you to file a ticket in the GitHub issues tracking system prior to any code development to coordinate with the system_modes development team early in the process. Coordinating up front helps to avoid frustration later on.

License

Your contribution must be licensed under the Apache-2.0 license, the license used by this project.

Add / retain copyright notices

Include a copyright notice and license in each new file to be contributed, consistent with the style used by this project. If your contribution contains code under the copyright of a third party, document its origin, license, and copyright holders.

Sign your work

This project tracks patch provenance and licensing using the Developer Certificate of Origin 1.1 (DCO) from developercertificate.org and Signed-off-by tags initially developed by the Linux kernel project.

Developer Certificate of Origin
Version 1.1

Copyright (C) 2004, 2006 The Linux Foundation and its contributors.
1 Letterman Drive
Suite D4700
San Francisco, CA, 94129

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this
license document, but changing it is not allowed.


Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1

By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:

(a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I
    have the right to submit it under the open source license
    indicated in the file; or

(b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best
    of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source
    license and I have the right under that license to submit that
    work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part
    by me, under the same open source license (unless I am
    permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated
    in the file; or

(c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other
    person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified
    it.

(d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution
    are public and that a record of the contribution (including all
    personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is
    maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with
    this project or the open source license(s) involved.

With the sign-off in a commit message you certify that you authored the patch or otherwise have the right to submit it under an open source license. The procedure is simple: To certify above Developer’s Certificate of Origin 1.1 for your contribution just append a line

Signed-off-by: Random J Developer <random@developer.example.org>

to every commit message using your real name or your pseudonym and a valid email address.

If you have set your user.name and user.email git configs you can automatically sign the commit by running the git-commit command with the -s option. There may be multiple sign-offs if more than one developer was involved in authoring the contribution.

Another option to automatically add the Signed-off-by: is to once use the command

git config core.hooksPath .githooks

in your system_modes working directory. This will then add the Signed-off-by: line automatically.

For a more detailed description of this procedure, please see SubmittingPatches which was extracted from the Linux kernel project, and which is stored in an external repository.

Individual vs. Corporate Contributors

Often employers or academic institution have ownership over code that is written in certain circumstances, so please do due diligence to ensure that you have the right to submit the code.

If you are a developer who is authorized to contribute to system_modes on behalf of your employer, then please use your corporate email address in the Signed-off-by tag. Otherwise please use a personal email address.

Maintain Copyright holder / Contributor list

Each contributor is responsible for identifying themselves in the NOTICE file, the project’s list of copyright holders and authors. Please add the respective information corresponding to the Signed-off-by tag as part of your first pull request.

If you are a developer who is authorized to contribute to system_modes on behalf of your employer, then add your company / organization to the list of copyright holders in the NOTICE file. As author of a corporate contribution you can also add your name and corporate email address as in the Signed-off-by tag.

If your contribution is covered by this project’s DCO’s clause “(c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other person who certified (a) or (b) and I have not modified it”, please add the appropriate copyright holder(s) to the NOTICE file as part of your contribution.