ROS2WASM: Bringing the Robot Operating System to the Web

Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation/Proceedings, pp. 15167–15173

Abstract

The Robot Operating System (ROS) has become the de facto standard middleware in robotics, widely adopted across domains ranging from education to industrial applications. The RoboStack distribution, a conda-based packaging system for ROS, has extended ROS's accessibility by facilitating installation across all major operating systems and architectures, integrating seamlessly with scientific tools such as PyTorch and Open3D. This paper presents ROS2WASM, a novel integration of RoboStack with WebAssembly, enabling the execution of ROS 2 and its associated software directly within web browsers, without requiring local installations. ROS2WASM significantly enhances the reproducibility and shareability of research, lowers barriers to robotics education, and leverages WebAssembly's robust security framework to protect against malicious code. We detail our methodology for cross-compiling ROS 2 packages into WebAssembly, the development of a specialized middleware for ROS 2 communication within browsers, and the implementation of www.ros2wasm.dev, a web platform enabling users to interact with ROS 2 environments. Additionally, we extend support to the Robotics Toolbox for Python and adapt its Swift simulator for browser compatibility. Our work paves the way for unprecedented accessibility in robotics, offering scalable, secure, and reproducible environments that have the potential to transform educational and research paradigms.

Authors 7

1. Tobias Fischer

   Queensland University of Technology

   Affiliation as printed

   School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics, Queensland University of Technology,QUT Centre for Robotics,Brisbane,Australia,QLD 4000

2. Michael Batchelor

   Queensland University of Technology

   Affiliation as printed

   School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics, Queensland University of Technology,QUT Centre for Robotics,Brisbane,Australia,QLD 4000

3. Thorsten Beier
   Affiliation as printed

   QuantStack,Saint-Maur-des-Fossés,France,94100

4. Jesse Haviland

   Queensland University of Technology

   Affiliation as printed

   School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics, Queensland University of Technology,QUT Centre for Robotics,Brisbane,Australia,QLD 4000

5. Silvio Traversaro

   Italian Institute of Technology

   Affiliation as printed

   Fondazione Istituto Italiano Di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology),Genova,Italy

6. Wolf Vollprecht
   Affiliation as printed

   prefix.dev,Berlin,Germany,10117

7. Michael John Milford

   Queensland University of Technology

   Affiliation as printed

   School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics, Queensland University of Technology,QUT Centre for Robotics,Brisbane,Australia,QLD 4000