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A Survey of Real-Time Support, Analysis, and Advancements in ROS 2

Authors: Daniel Casini, Jian-Jia Chen, Jing Li, Federico Reghenzani, and Harun Teper

Published in: LITES, Volume 11, Issue 1 (2026). Leibniz Transactions on Embedded Systems, Volume 11, Issue 1

Abstract

The Robot Operating System 2 (ROS 2) has emerged as a relevant middleware framework for robotic applications, offering modularity, distributed execution, and communication. In the last six years, ROS 2 has drawn increasing attention from the real-time systems community and industry. This survey presents a comprehensive overview of research efforts that analyze, enhance, and extend ROS 2 to support real-time execution. We first provide a detailed description of the internal scheduling mechanisms of ROS 2 and its layered architecture, including the interaction with DDS-based communication and other communication middleware. We then review key contributions from the literature, covering timing analysis for both single- and multi-threaded executors, metrics such as response time, reaction time, and data age, and different communication modes. The survey also discusses community-driven enhancements to the ROS 2 runtime, including new executor algorithm designs, real-time GPU management, and microcontroller support via micro-ROS. Furthermore, we summarize techniques for bounding DDS communication delays, message filters, and profiling tools that have been developed to support analysis and experimentation. To help systematize this growing body of work, we introduce taxonomies that classify the surveyed contributions based on different criteria. This survey aims to guide both researchers and practitioners in understanding and improving the real-time capabilities of ROS 2.

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Daniel Casini, Jian-Jia Chen, Jing Li, Federico Reghenzani, and Harun Teper. A Survey of Real-Time Support, Analysis, and Advancements in ROS 2. In LITES, Volume 11, Issue 1 (2026). Leibniz Transactions on Embedded Systems, Volume 11, Issue 1, pp. 1:1-1:37, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@Article{casini_et_al:LITES.11.1.1,
  author =	{Casini, Daniel and Chen, Jian-Jia and Li, Jing and Reghenzani, Federico and Teper, Harun},
  title =	{{A Survey of Real-Time Support, Analysis, and Advancements in ROS 2}},
  journal =	{Leibniz Transactions on Embedded Systems},
  pages =	{1:1--1:37},
  ISSN =	{2199-2002},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{11},
  number =	{1},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LITES.11.1.1},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-257914},
  doi =		{10.4230/LITES.11.1.1},
  annote =	{Keywords: ROS 2, middleware, real-time, timing predictability, publish-subscribe}
}

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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ECRTS.2023.10

On the Equivalence of Maximum Reaction Time and Maximum Data Age for Cause-Effect Chains

Authors: Mario Günzel, Harun Teper, Kuan-Hsun Chen, Georg von der Brüggen, and Jian-Jia Chen

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 262, 35th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS 2023)

Abstract

Real-time systems require a formal guarantee of timing-constraints, not only for individual tasks but also for data-propagation. The timing behavior of data-propagation paths in a given system is typically described by its maximum reaction time and its maximum data age. This paper shows that they are equivalent. To reach this conclusion, partitioned job chains are introduced, which consist of one immediate forward and one immediate backward job chain. Such partitioned job chains are proven to describe maximum reaction time and maximum data age in a universal manner. This universal description does not only show the equivalence of maximum reaction time and maximum data age, but can also be exploited to speed up the computation of such significantly. In particular, the speed-up for synthesized task sets based on automotive benchmarks can be up to 1600. Since only very few non-restrictive assumptions are made, the equivalence of maximum data age and maximum reaction time holds for almost any scheduling mechanism and even for tasks which do not adhere to the typical periodic or sporadic task model. This observation is supported by a simulation of a ROS2 navigation system.

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Mario Günzel, Harun Teper, Kuan-Hsun Chen, Georg von der Brüggen, and Jian-Jia Chen. On the Equivalence of Maximum Reaction Time and Maximum Data Age for Cause-Effect Chains. In 35th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 262, pp. 10:1-10:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)

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@InProceedings{gunzel_et_al:LIPIcs.ECRTS.2023.10,
  author =	{G\"{u}nzel, Mario and Teper, Harun and Chen, Kuan-Hsun and von der Br\"{u}ggen, Georg and Chen, Jian-Jia},
  title =	{{On the Equivalence of Maximum Reaction Time and Maximum Data Age for Cause-Effect Chains}},
  booktitle =	{35th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS 2023)},
  pages =	{10:1--10:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-280-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{262},
  editor =	{Papadopoulos, Alessandro V.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ECRTS.2023.10},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-180392},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ECRTS.2023.10},
  annote =	{Keywords: End-to-End, Timing Analysis, Maximum Data Age, Maximum Reaction Time, Cause-Effect Chain, Robot Operating Systems 2 (ROS2)}
}

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Documents authored by Teper, Harun

A Survey of Real-Time Support, Analysis, and Advancements in ROS 2

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On the Equivalence of Maximum Reaction Time and Maximum Data Age for Cause-Effect Chains

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