Bringing Elastic to robotics developers: Integrating with ROS

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New article on integrating Elastic with the Robot Operating System (ROS) for robotics developers and the Elastic community! :rocket::robot:

Hello, I would like to share my latest article. In this post, I explore how to integrate Elastic with ROS, an essential framework in robotic application development.

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@Alex_Salgado Thanks for the article! I’ve been using Elastic Stack for Cybersecurity and Server Monitoring. It’s good to see how it can be used for ROS2.

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Nice! Thanks for sharing, @Alex_Salgado .

How would you compare the end-result of this integration to a robotics-specific tool like Foxglove? I see certain benefits to Elastic – clearly it’s a great index and data store, and very versatile. But does Kibana have the visualization widgets needed for robotics? I’m quite possibly looking at it from the wrong angle, but if you could elaborate on the practical use-cases where this solution shines that would be much appreciated! I have some ideas but they are vague and you’ve clearly given this a lot of thought.

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Hi @chfritz, it’s a pleasure to meet you.

As a Developer Advocate at Elastic and a Ph.D. Candidate in Robotics, I like to use part of my time working on finding ways to integrating the power of Elastic within the context of robotics. While Elastic isn’t specifically built for robotics, its versatility and scalability can make it an invaluable tool within this field.

Here are some practical use cases where Elastic shines:

  1. Long-term data storage and analysis: Elastic is perfect if you’re running a fleet of robots and want to store and analyze data from their operations over an extended period.
  2. Anomaly detection: Elasticsearch’s machine learning capabilities can help identify anomalies in the robot’s sensor data over time.
  3. Scalability: If your application involves a large volume of data or requires real-time data processing, Elasticsearch’s distributed nature and Kibana’s data visualization can handle this effectively.

Kibana might initially fall short in the specificity of its visualization capabilities. Out of the box, it might not have the exact widgets you’d need for certain types of robotics data. However, Kibana is highly customizable and extensible. If you have the development resources, you can create custom visualizations to meet your needs.

Here’s a specific use case from NASA that you might find interesting:

You can find more here: Elastic Case Studies

If you have a specific case in mind, I could try to find more information for you.

P.S.: I love the UI and features of Foxglove, but I haven’t had the opportunity to work with it yet.

Best, Alex

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Hi @sanwa2000, it’s great to see that you’re already familiar with Elastic.

Have you tried using Elastic Cybersecurity for Robots?

Best,
Alex

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Have you tried using Elastic Cybersecurity for Robots?

@Alex_Salgado I haven’t tried yet. I’m still exploring ROS2.

But I think security events from Elasticsearch could be useful for ROS2 nodes. For example when there is a potential security breach, Elasticsearch will trigger alerts for ROS2 nodes to behave accordingly.

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