ROSlink: Interfacing legacy systems with ROS

This paper presents ROSlink, an open source project that aims at easing the integration of legacy systems with ROS (Robot Operating System). Its design principles provide a set of unique features that make it appealing for the interconnection of ROS with systems where ROS itself cannot be installed. First, ROSlink requires very limited changes to the legacy system. The project is self contained, bringing in no dependencies, which may be difficult to satisfy in a legacy system. Furthermore, with ROSlink any data type already in use in the legacy system can be employed for the communication of topics and service requests and responses. ROSlink allows run-time rerouting of the communication between the legacy system and ROS. Moreover, it empowers the legacy code with the ROS name remapping system, without enforcing any constraint on the command line parameters of legacy programs. Finally, by simply using a set of API that closely follow the ROS programming interface, ROSlink simplifies any successive porting of the code to a real ROS system. In this paper, the main design choices of ROSlink are discussed. A list of practical applications and tests where ROSlink was employed, as well as a short discussion on the project's future directions are then given.