Interface — ROS 2 & Space ROS

Use ROS 2 to access supported sensor data and robot actions from simulation and agent workflows. Availability depends on the action space and runtime.

ROS 2 exposes supported simulation data and actions through standard interfaces and messages such as geometry_msgs and sensor_msgs. Use RViz2, tf2, and rosbag2 to visualize, debug, and record data. Nodes can run across processes or machines. Reuse algorithms and control systems as a starting point for hardware workflows, then validate them separately.

Space ROS

Space ROS extends ROS beyond Earth. For SRB, use ROS 2 Jazzy, set RMW_IMPLEMENTATION to rmw_cyclonedds_cpp or rmw_fastrtps_cpp, and set ROS_DOMAIN_ID to an integer from 0 through 232. Space ROS compatibility is unvalidated. Space Robotics Bench continues Parallel ProcGen Environments, developed during the NASA Space ROS Sim Summer Sprint Challenge.

Choose either integration:

• Indirect (recommended): Run SRB’s ROS 2 interface on standard ROS 2 middleware and communicate with Space ROS nodes through standard ROS 2 interfaces; no Space ROS-specific setup is required beyond the ROS settings above.
• Direct: Source Space ROS before SRB to run its ROS 2 interface with Space ROS middleware alongside other Space ROS nodes.

Implementation

The bridge dynamically provides:

• Dynamic interfaces - Creates supported publishers, subscribers, and services for the selected environment; no manual endpoint configuration.
• Parallel environments - Uses separate ROS namespaces per simulation instance; global control is also available.
• Message translation - Translates environment states, sensor outputs, and control commands from simulation tensors to ROS interfaces.
• Data and actions - Interface modules expose supported sensors, transforms, batched Box actions, and step outputs, but not every simulation entity.

Get Started

1. Installation
2. Basic Usage
3. ROS 2 Workflow

Manual TF trajectory visualizer

Use the standalone TF-to-Path node in the checkout to observe transforms. Run it in the ROS domain containing those transforms. It requires sourced ROS 2 Jazzy and the rclpy, tf2_ros, geometry_msgs, and nav_msgs ROS packages; the Python plotting extra does not provide them.

1. Source ROS 2 Jazzy and run the node from the checkout, replacing the frame names with those from your system:

   source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
   python srb/interfaces/sim_to_real/utils/visual/ros_tf_traj_display.py \
     --ros-args -p source_frame:=world -p target_frame:=target -p publish_rate_hz:=10.0
   

2. Add target_path (nav_msgs/msg/Path, published in source_frame) as an RViz Path display.

3. Stop the node when the observation session ends.

The node preserves transform orientation and keeps at most 1000 poses by default. It publishes visualization data, not robot commands, and has no installed ros2 run executable or srb subcommand.

The waypoint evaluator at srb/interfaces/sim_to_real/utils/eval/waypoint_navigation.py is a separate manual evaluation tool.

Next: ROS 2 Workflow