2026-10-05T21:32:41Z https://drops.dagstuhl.de/oai

oai:drops-oai.dagstuhl.de:27972 2026-10-05T06:44:02Z ddc:004 open_access

Whispers and Watts: An Empirical Study of the Energy Consumption of ROS 2 Topic-Based Communication Albonico, Michel Macedo, Nuno ROS 2 Energy Consumption Topic Communication GitHub Mining Background. The Robot Operating System (ROS) is a framework widely adopted for developing robotics applications. Its topic-based communication model allows distributed components to exchange data via message-passing, where suboptimal messaging configuration can lead to performance degradation and resource inefficiency. Aims. This paper aims to investigate the energy consumption for ROS 2 topic-based communication, focusing on messaging configurations commonly used in real-world robotics projects. Method. We systematically mine 112 active ROS 2 GitHub repositories to identify prevalent message types, frequencies, sizes, and number of subscribers. These insights guide the design of a controlled experiment in which we measure the power consumption of ROS 2 nodes across multiple configurations. Results. Analysis reveals that message type and interval significantly affect subscriber-side energy usage, with complex messages also affecting the publisher side. This evidence helps guide the design of energy-aware robotics software based on publish/subscribe communication. Conclusions. ROS 2 topic-based communication design decisions, especially message type and publishing interval, have a substantial impact on energy consumption. Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik Michel Albonico and Nuno Macedo 2026 Is Part Of LIPIcs, Volume 394, 20th International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM 2026) InProceedings Text doc-type:ResearchArticle publishedVersion application/pdf doi:10.4230/LIPIcs.ESEM.2026.4 urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-279723 https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESEM.2026.4 eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode