[](https://hex.pm/packages/rclex)
[](https://hexdocs.pm/rclex/readme.html)
[](https://github.com/rclex/rclex/blob/main/LICENSE)
[](https://github.com/rclex/rclex/actions/workflows/ci_latest.yml)
[](https://github.com/rclex/rclex/actions/workflows/ci_allver.yml)
[日本語のREADME](README_ja.md)
# Rclex
Rclex is a ROS 2 client library for Elixir.
This library lets you perform basic ROS 2 behaviors by calling out from Elixir code into the RCL (ROS Client Library) API, which
uses the ROS 2 common hierarchy.
Additionally, publisher-subscriber (PubSub) communication between nodes and associated callback functions are executed by *tasks*,
which are part of a lightweight process model. This enables generation of and communication between a large number of fault-tolerant
nodes while suppressing memory load.
## About ROS 2
ROS (Robot Operating System) is a next-generation Robot development framework. In both ROS and ROS 2, each functional
unit is exposed as a node, and by combining these nodes you can create different robot applications. Additionally,
communication between nodes uses a PubSub model where publisher and subscriber exchange information by specifying a
common topic name.
The biggest difference between ROS and ROS 2 is that the DDS (Data Distribution Service) protocol was adopted for
communication, and the library was divided in a hierarchical structure, allowing for the creation of ROS 2 client
libraries in various languages. This has allowed for the creation of a robot application library in Elixir.
For details on ROS 2, see the official [ROS 2 documentation](https://index.ros.org/doc/ros2/).
## Usage
Currently, the Rclex API allows for the following:
1. The ability to create a large number of publishers sending to the same topic.
2. The ability to create large numbers of each combination of publishers, topics, and subscribers.
Please reference examples [here](https://github.com/rclex/rclex_samples). Also note the usage alongside the sample code.
## Recommended Environment
Currently, we use the following environment as the development target:
- Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS (Focal Fossa)
- ROS 2 [Foxy Fitzroy](https://docs.ros.org/en/foxy/Releases/Release-Foxy-Fitzroy.html)
- also work well on Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS and [Dashing Diademata](https://index.ros.org/doc/ros2/Releases/Release-Dashing-Diademata/)
- Elixir 1.11.2-otp-23
- Erlang/OTP 23.3.1
As an operation test, we check the communication with nodes implemented by [rclcpp](https://github.com/ros2/rclcpp) using [rclex/rclex_connection_tests](https://github.com/rclex/rclex_connection_tests).
We also run CI in multiple different environments on [GitHub Actions](https://github.com/rclex/rclex/actions).
However, please note that we cannot guarantee the operation of all of these versions due to our limited development resources.
The pre-built Docker images used in CI have published on [Docker Hub](https://hub.docker.com/r/rclex/rclex_docker).
You can also try the power of Rclex with it easily.
## Installation
`rclex` is [available in Hex](https://hex.pm/docs/publish).
You can install this package into your project
by adding `rclex` to your list of dependencies in `mix.exs`:
```elixir
def deps do
[
{:rclex, "~> 0.5.1"}
]
end
```
Documentation can be generated with [ExDoc](https://github.com/elixir-lang/ex_doc)
and published on [HexDocs](https://hexdocs.pm).
You can find the docs at [https://hexdocs.pm/rclex](https://hexdocs.pm/rclex).
