Nowadays robots doesn´t work on an isolated way. On manufactures, laboratories and logistcs environments, it is more common that robots, sensors and digital apps where data is registered collaborate between them.
For this to work in a coordinated way, it is necessary something invisible but fundamental: a reliable way of communication between all these systems.
On the ARISE project, that role is developed by our middleware, that facilitates the communication betweent robots, sensors and data platforms so that they can speak the same language.
One of the objectives of the project is to connect what happens with the physical world (robots, sensors, machines) with the digital world (data platforms and applications).
In ARISE robotic applications are developed for the human-robot interaction based on our ARISE middleware of open source, an integrated solution taht combine reference technology such as Vulcanexus (an optimized ROS2 european distribution for commercial applications), FIWARE and ROS4HRI.
Thanks to these technologies, ARISE middleware enables the interoperability on robotics applications through ROS 2 and direct integration with digital systems through FIWARE Context Broker technology. In that way, thanks to ARISE middleware, the plant information is combine with business information in a same digital plan, updating on real-time, where data can be seen, share and analyse to optimize industrial processes.
These allows seeing in real-time what is happening in a robotic application, facilitate the digital representations and improve the processes efficiency.
How robots and digital systems communicate?
Imagine a factory where people and robots collaborate on the same line. A robot detects a piece, another other collects them and a third one puts it back on its place. An operary oversees and collaborate on the process and can intervene if something doesn´t work. At the same time, a computer system oversees everything it happens. To be coordinate, all of them needs to interchange information constantly.
For all that to function, is needed a technology able to distribute information between several different systems on real-time.
Instead of connect each system with the other ones, something more complex and inefficient, is use FAST DDS, an open source implementation of DDS standard (Data Distribution Service), design to facilitate the comunication distributed between robotics applications. A system publish information of interest and receive only those systems that are suscribe to these information. This makes that the communication is more flexible, faster and easy to scale, even when there are many robots and sensors working at the same time.
Let´s explain a little bit more:
- The publisher components (Node 1 and 2) send data through different channels (called topics, i.e: /robot_pose, /battery_status o /camera/image) only when data change the shipment is made.
- The information is received instantly by the subscribers (Node 3 and 4) that have been previously subscribe, need those information on their process.
- This allows that devices are communicate from equal to equal, without relying on a central server to exchange information.
In a similar way, imagine a radio station. Each station broadcasts in a different frequency (music, news, sports…) Only those who tune that frequency receive the information.
This technology acts like a system of advance digital delivery that allows that different devices such as robots or applications send information between then without the need of connect connect directly with one another. This architecture is particularly advantageous when the number of connected devices increase.
Vulcanexus: a platform to develop connected robotics applications
Over this base technology is find Vulcanexus, developed by the company eProsima. It´s about a solution all in one to develop, connect and deploy robotics applications based on ROS 2, one of the software framework more used actually for the development of robotics applications.
On ARISE has been developed and enabler (DDS Enabler) that allows connect the ROS 2 ecosystem with the FIWARE ecosystem. In this way, the information generated by robots can interchange automatically with platforms based on NGSI-LD, FIWARE standard.
In practice, Vulcanexus helps to create robotics applications easily, connecting robots with sensors, people and digital systems, overseeing the function of complex systems. In few words, it makes working with connected robots more accesible and it isn´t necessary a huge amount of knowledge and experience in robotics.
ARISE: Open technology for a more interoperable robotics
A key aspect of all that is that it’s about open source technology, that is to said, open and accesible. So, different organisations could collaborate on their development, promote the share innovation and reuse developments in other projects so they don´t start from zero.
In projects such as ARISE, this approach is specially important, because it allows construct solutions that do not depend on one only company or technology.
Open technologies such as Vulcanexus, Fast DDS and FIWARE makes possible this conexion, acting as the invisible base that allows all works on a coordinated way.
Robotics is advancing through systems each time more collaborative and open, where machines, robots, sensors and software works together as part of a same ecosystem.
Would you like to integrate robots and digital systems into your processes?
At CARTIF we work on the development and validation of robotics, automatation and interoperability solutoons for industrial environments. Through infrastrcutures such as CARTIFactory, our human-robot collaboration pilot plant, we can experiment and validate robotics technologies in controlled environments before address their implementation in real productive processes.
Co-author
Raúl Sánchez-Mateos. Expertise in systems and middleware communications for robotics. CTO on eProsima, partner from ARISE project
More about robotics…
- Vulcanexus and Fast DDS: open source that connect robots and data platforms - 4 September 2026
- ROS4HRI: a common language for human-robot interaction in Industry 5.0 - 10 October 2025
- Interoperability in Industry 5.0: the Key Role of FIWARE - 21 March 2025