A Modular and Configurable Architecture for ROS 2 Hardware Integration with micro-ROS

Abstract

In general, a vehicle cannot follow a given trajectory if the control commands for the motor controllers are not delivered to the hardware in time. This issue arises when a standard computer running ROS 2 is used for control without a real-time extension. This paper presents an architecture that leverages micro-ROS on an ESP32-C6 with a RISC-V CPU running a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS). The goal is to demonstrate that drift compensation, based on odometry and IMU data, can be performed in real-time directly on the microcontroller. As a first step, we show how micro-ROS handles robot kinematics (Ackermann steering) within the firmware, configured via a persistent parameter server. We demonstrate that this design improves integration simplicity, adaptability, separation of concerns and evaluate real-time compliance.