Universal industrial robot operating system flow control integration method
By introducing traffic rule translation module, mapping module and configuration module into the industrial robot operating system, decoupling between traffic control and operating system, middleware and hardware is achieved, and the problem of traffic control consistency in multi-platform environments is solved, and development efficiency and code reusability are improved.
Patent Information
- Application Number
- CN202510270878.5
- Authority / Receiving Office
- CN · China
- Patent Type
- Applications(China)
- Current Assignee / Owner
- Filing Date
- 2025-03-07
- Publication Date
- 2025-06-06
AI Technical Summary
The mechanism of network traffic control in existing industrial robot operating systems is inconsistent in a multi-platform environment, which makes it difficult to ensure the real-time nature of important traffic when multitasking is executed in parallel, increasing development costs and affecting the real-time and reliability of traffic control.
By introducing traffic rule translation module, traffic rule mapping module and traffic rule configuration module, the decoupling of traffic control with the operating system, middleware and underlying hardware is achieved, and a unified traffic rule setting interface is provided, so that user code can be reused across platforms.
Cross-platform traffic control is realized, reducing development and maintenance complexity, improving code versatility and reusability, allowing developers to focus on business logic optimization without worrying about underlying system differences.
Smart Images
Figure CN120111002A_ABST
Abstract
Description
Technical Field
[0001] The invention relates to the technical field of industrial robots, and in particular to a universal flow control integration method for an industrial robot operating system. Background Art
[0002] With the continuous advancement of industrial automation technology, industrial robots have been widely used in many fields such as manufacturing, logistics, and medical treatment. Industrial robots are usually composed of complex integrated systems, including mechanical, electrical, control, perception and other technologies. Their core control systems rely on industrial computer hardware platforms and are equipped with dedicated robot operating systems. This operating system is not only responsible for the basic control and data processing of the robot, but also needs to ensure the real-time scheduling and execution of tasks in complex multi-tasking environments, which is especially important for industrial application scenarios that require precise timing control and strict real-time performance.
[0003] However, in the existing technology, different industrial robot operating systems have different control mechanisms for network traffic. Especially when multiple critical tasks are executed in parallel, how to ensure the real-time performance of certain important traffic in network transmission has become a major technical challenge for robot operating systems. According to the traditional configuration method, developers need to modify it on different platforms to adapt to the traffic management mechanisms of different systems. This not only increases the development cost, but also affects the real-time performance and reliability of traffic control to a certain extent.
[0004] Therefore, a new integration method is urgently needed to ensure the real-time transmission of important traffic in different industrial control tasks on multiple robot operating system platforms. Such a method should take into account both versatility and real-time performance, so that developers can efficiently manage network traffic of different operating systems under a unified architecture and optimize the overall performance of industrial robots. Summary of the invention
[0005] The purpose of the present invention is to provide a universal industrial robot operating system flow control integration method to solve the problems raised in the above background technology.
[0006] In order to achieve cross-platform traffic control by decoupling traffic control from a specific industrial robot operating system and underlying hardware, and at the same time provide users with a unified traffic rule setting interface so that user code can be reused across platforms to save development time and resources, the present invention provides the following technical solutions: a universal industrial robot operating system traffic control integration method, consisting of a traffic rule translation module, a traffic rule mapping module and a traffic rule configuration module, and the specific steps are as follows: user-defined traffic control rules are passed to the host operating system or underlying hardware processing in turn through the traffic rule translation module and the traffic rule mapping module, and the configuration of the host operating system or the underlying hardware is configured in advance by the traffic rule configuration module.
[0007] Among them, the Robot Operating System (ROS) is not an operating system in the strict sense, but a collection of various middleware (software used for robot software development). This framework provides services designed for heterogeneous computer clusters, such as hardware abstract description, underlying driver management, execution of common functions, inter-program message passing, program distribution package management, etc. The operation of ROS depends on the existence of a host operating system such as Linux. In order to distinguish the two operating systems, they are referred to as the robot operating system and the host operating system respectively.
[0008] The main function of the traffic rule translation module is to convert the traffic rules set by the user into settings that can be recognized by the network middleware or the transport layer of the host operating system. If neither supports the traffic rules set by the user, the module needs to locally record the corresponding traffic rules (the port or IP address of the data packet is used as the index key). These rules will then be read by the rule mapping module to restore the original traffic rules.
[0009] Specifically, the traffic rule translation module converts the traffic priority specified by the user into a configuration understandable by the robot operating system middleware or the host operating system transport layer.
[0010] When neither the robot operating system middleware nor the host operating system transport layer supports the configuration of flow control rules, the flow rule translation module stores the port / IP address and user rules as key-value pairs in the local module.
[0011] Among them, the traffic rule mapping module is the inverse process of the traffic rule translation module. This module is responsible for restoring the operations performed by the traffic rule translation module back to the corresponding traffic rules and mapping them into settings that can be understood by the traffic rule configuration module.
[0012] Specifically, the traffic rule mapping module is responsible for actually executing the user's traffic rules.
[0013] When the robot operating system middleware or the host operating system transport layer already supports flow rule settings, the flow rule mapping module needs to be compatible with the host operating system's flow control API;
[0014] When the robot operating system middleware or the host operating system transport layer does not support flow rule settings, the flow rule mapping module needs to communicate with the flow rule translation module to obtain the flow rule to which the flow belongs.
[0015] Among them, the traffic rule configuration module is responsible for configuring various device hardware at the bottom layer of the system, mainly for network interface devices. For example, when the network interface card (NIC) supports the time-sensitive network (TSN) function, this module will use the tc-taprio tool to configure the time slots and frame preemption functions of different priority flows. For network interface cards that do not support complex quality of service requirements (QoS), the functions provided by the operating system will be used to set the software-level traffic priority.
[0016] Specifically, the traffic rule configuration module is responsible for writing the quality of service policy into the host operating system or the hardware network card register.
[0017] The second aspect of the present invention also includes a software-defined network, which simultaneously performs unified and coordinated flow control on multiple robot operating systems.
[0018] The specific steps of unified and coordinated traffic control of multiple robot operating systems through software-defined networks are as follows:
[0019] A central controller is responsible for formulating and issuing service quality policies for the entire domain. The traffic rule configuration module of each node communicates with the central controller for local configuration.
[0020] The traffic rule translation module and the traffic rule mapping module do not communicate with the central controller. The traffic rule translation module and the traffic rule mapping module are only responsible for implementing transparent forwarding of the rules of this node.
[0021] Compared with the prior art, the present invention has the following beneficial effects:
[0022] The present invention achieves effective decoupling between traffic control and the operating system, middleware and underlying hardware by introducing a traffic rule translation module and a traffic rule mapping module. In this way, user code can run seamlessly on multiple different platforms without additional modification and adaptation. This architecture not only greatly reduces the complexity of development and maintenance, but also improves the versatility and reusability of the code, allowing developers to focus more on optimizing business logic without having to worry about the impact of differences in the underlying systems. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0023] Figure 1 It is a schematic diagram of each module of the integrated method for flow control of an industrial robot of the present invention;
[0024] Figure 2 The integrated method of the present invention is expanded into a distributed schematic diagram;
[0025] Figure 3 This is a block diagram of the traffic rule translation module, traffic rule mapping module and traffic rule configuration module of the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0026] The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be described clearly and completely below in conjunction with the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention. Obviously, the described embodiments are only part of the embodiments of the present invention, rather than all the embodiments.
[0027] Example 1
[0028] See also Figure 1 and Figure 3 The present invention proposes a universal industrial robot operating system flow control integration method, which consists of a flow rule translation module, a flow rule mapping module and a flow rule configuration module. The specific steps are as follows: the user-defined flow control rules are passed to the host operating system or underlying hardware processing through the flow rule translation module and the flow rule mapping module in turn, and the configuration of the host operating system or the underlying hardware is configured in advance by the flow rule configuration module.
[0029] Among them, the Robot Operating System (ROS) is not an operating system in the strict sense, but a collection of various middleware (software used for robot software development). This framework provides services designed for heterogeneous computer clusters, such as hardware abstract description, underlying driver management, execution of common functions, inter-program message passing, program distribution package management, etc. The operation of ROS depends on the existence of a host operating system such as Linux. In order to distinguish the two operating systems, they are referred to as the robot operating system and the host operating system respectively.
[0030] The main function of the traffic rule translation module is to convert the traffic rules set by the user into settings that can be recognized by the network middleware or the transport layer of the host operating system. If neither supports the traffic rules set by the user, the module needs to locally record the corresponding traffic rules (the port or IP address of the data packet is used as the index key). These rules will then be read by the rule mapping module to restore the original traffic rules.
[0031] Specifically, the traffic rule translation module converts the traffic priority specified by the user into a configuration understandable by the robot operating system middleware or the host operating system transport layer.
[0032] When neither the robot operating system middleware nor the host operating system transport layer supports the configuration of flow control rules, the flow rule translation module stores the port / IP address and user rules as key-value pairs in the local module.
[0033] Among them, the traffic rule mapping module is the inverse process of the traffic rule translation module. This module is responsible for restoring the operations performed by the traffic rule translation module back to the corresponding traffic rules and mapping them into settings that can be understood by the traffic rule configuration module.
[0034] Specifically, the traffic rule mapping module is responsible for actually executing the user's traffic rules.
[0035] When the robot operating system middleware or the host operating system transport layer already supports flow rule settings, the flow rule mapping module needs to be compatible with the host operating system's flow control API;
[0036] When the robot operating system middleware or the host operating system transport layer does not support traffic rule settings, the traffic rule mapping module needs to communicate with the traffic rule translation module to obtain the traffic rules to which the traffic belongs, such as obtaining the corresponding priority number through the port number of the traffic, and then using tc-filter to set the corresponding priority for the traffic.
[0037] Among them, the traffic rule configuration module is responsible for configuring various device hardware at the bottom layer of the system, mainly for network interface devices. For example, when the network interface card (NIC) supports the time-sensitive network (TSN) function, this module will use the tc-taprio tool to configure the time slots and frame preemption functions of different priority flows. For network interface cards that do not support complex quality of service requirements (QoS), the functions provided by the operating system will be used to set the software-level traffic priority.
[0038] Specifically, the traffic rule configuration module is responsible for writing the quality of service policy into the host operating system or hardware network card register.
[0039] In actual application: the administrator defines the priority of the traffic in the entire robot network. For example, control signaling has the highest priority and can preempt other types of messages, followed by monitoring messages, and messages of the same priority are transmitted in turn in time slots, etc. These quality of service (QoS) policies are then written into the host operating system (soft policy) or hardware network card (hard policy) through the traffic rule configuration module. The traffic rule configuration module uses tc-taprio or netlink tools to configure the rules into the network card register.
[0040] The robot operating system in an autonomous domain may be managed by one person or multiple people. The robot operating system and the middleware used may be the same or different. In order to minimize the dependence on different robot operating systems and middleware, this method only modifies the data flow at a few key nodes on the data flow path. Figure 1As shown in the figure (the white hollow arrows represent the original data flow path, and the black solid arrows represent the path after using this method), without using this method, the data flow directly passes through the middleware of the robot operating system, the transport layer of the host operating system, and is finally processed by the network card. In this case, if the user wants to perform flow control, he needs to modify the middleware code (the middleware may not support the flow control rules the user wants) and configure the network card separately. This approach will cause trouble when upgrading the robot operating system version in the future.
[0041] This method proposes to insert a traffic rule translation module into the key nodes 1 and 2 of the data flow (the gray circular nodes in the figure), and provide users with a general traffic control API so that user code can be reused across platforms. The traffic rule translation module converts the traffic rules set by the user into a configuration that can be understood by the lower layer. This conversion may be scattered at different nodes. The middleware itself may already support some traffic control rules. The traffic rule translation module only needs to be compatible with the middleware API; if the middleware does not support it, the data flow <port / IP address, etc., user rules> is stored as a key-value pair in the local module.
[0042] Example 2
[0043] See also Figure 2 When multiple robot operating systems need to be configured simultaneously, the method can be expanded to a distributed one. The present invention also includes a software-defined network, through which unified and coordinated flow control of multiple robot operating systems is simultaneously performed.
[0044] The specific steps of unified and coordinated traffic control of multiple robot operating systems through software-defined networks are as follows:
[0045] A central controller is responsible for formulating and issuing service quality policies for the entire domain. The traffic rule configuration module of each node communicates with the central controller for local configuration.
[0046] The traffic rule translation module and the traffic rule mapping module do not communicate with the central controller. The traffic rule translation module and the traffic rule mapping module are only responsible for implementing transparent forwarding of the rules of this node.
[0047] In summary, the present invention achieves effective decoupling between traffic control and the operating system, middleware and underlying hardware by introducing a traffic rule translation module and a traffic rule mapping module. In this way, user code can run seamlessly on multiple different platforms without additional modification and adaptation. This architecture not only greatly reduces the complexity of development and maintenance, but also improves the versatility and reusability of the code, allowing developers to focus more on optimizing business logic without having to worry about the impact of differences in the underlying systems.
[0048] Based on the embodiments of the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by ordinary technicians in the field without making any creative work shall fall within the scope of protection of the present invention.
Claims
1. A general industrial robot operating system flow control integration method, characterized in that: It consists of a traffic rule translation module, a traffic rule mapping module and a traffic rule configuration module. The specific steps are as follows: the user-defined traffic control rules are passed to the host operating system or underlying hardware for processing through the traffic rule translation module and the traffic rule mapping module in turn. The configuration of the host operating system or underlying hardware is configured in advance by the traffic rule configuration module.
2. A universal industrial robot operating system flow control integration method according to claim 1, characterized in that: The traffic rule translation module converts the traffic priority specified by the user into a configuration understandable by the robot operating system middleware or the host operating system transport layer.
3. A universal industrial robot operating system flow control integration method according to claim 2, characterized in that: When neither the robot operating system middleware nor the host operating system transport layer supports the configuration of flow control rules, the flow rule translation module stores the port / IP address and user rules as key-value pairs in the local module.
4. A universal industrial robot operating system flow control integration method according to claim 1, characterized in that: The traffic rule mapping module is responsible for actually executing the user's traffic rules.
5. A universal industrial robot operating system flow control integration method according to claim 4, characterized in that: When the robot operating system middleware or the host operating system transport layer already supports flow rule settings, the flow rule mapping module needs to be compatible with the host operating system's flow control API; When the robot operating system middleware or the host operating system transport layer does not support flow rule settings, the flow rule mapping module needs to communicate with the flow rule translation module to obtain the flow rule to which the flow belongs.
6. A universal industrial robot operating system flow control integration method according to claim 1, characterized in that: The traffic rule configuration module is responsible for writing the quality of service policy into the host operating system or the hardware network card register.
7. A universal industrial robot operating system flow control integration method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, characterized in that: It also includes software-defined networking, which simultaneously performs unified and coordinated traffic control of multiple robot operating systems.
8. A universal industrial robot operating system flow control integration method according to claim 7, characterized in that: The specific steps for unified and coordinated traffic control of multiple robot operating systems through software-defined networks are as follows: A central controller is responsible for formulating and issuing service quality policies for the entire domain. The traffic rule configuration module of each node communicates with the central controller for local configuration. The traffic rule translation module and the traffic rule mapping module do not communicate with the central controller. The traffic rule translation module and the traffic rule mapping module are only responsible for implementing transparent forwarding of the rules of this node.