title: Micro XRCE-DDS Agent now on snap!

author: francesca-finocchiaro

In collaboration with [Canonical](https://canonical.com/), we took the liberty to wrap the [Micro XRCE-DDS Agent](https://micro-xrce-dds.docs.eprosima.com/en/latest/agent.html) as a [snap](https://snapcraft.io/) package, which sets an important milestone for easing the use of Micro XRCE-DDS.

<img alt="Canonical" src="/img/posts/canonical.png" width="30%"/>

Snap is a package manager designed to bundle and handle applications and their dependencies on several Linux distros, among which Ubuntu.

<img alt="Snap" src="/img/posts/snap2.png" width="40%"/>

The snap packaging of the Agent comes with two ways of running it: as a simple executable or by means of a Linux service.

The first implies the usage of the Agent’s built-in CLI, where you can specify the standard configuration parameters (such as transport, port…) directly, as follows:

The second launches the Agent as a Linux service running in the background; to do so, simply execute:

In this case, instead of specifying the Agent’s launch parameters via the CLI, users can configure them thanks to the `snap services` interface, using the `snap set micro-xrce-dds-agent <param>=<value>` command. These parameters’ values are only valid when the `daemon` option is set to `true`, while they are ignored in `snap run` mode.

To have a look at the full list of configurable parameters, click [here](https://snapcraft.io/micro-xrce-dds-agent).

Given the closeness of the two Agents libraries, a snap release of the micro-ROS Agent is just one step away!

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title: micro-ROS and FIWARE - Enabling Robotics Systems on Microcontrollers

author: francesca-finocchiaro

On September 23rd, the [FIWARE Foundation](https://www.fiware.org/foundation/) held a webinar titled “Enabling Robotics Systems on Microcontrollers”, as a part of its series of free webinars about open source platform components for Smart Solutions.

The webinar focused on the interoperability between micro-ROS and FIWARE, made possible by [eProsima Integration-Service](https://integration-service.docs.eprosima.com/en/latest/) and its core [SOSS](https://soss.docs.eprosima.com/en/latest/). SOSS is a platform that acts as a centralizing bridge to communicate incompatible protocols that speak different languages. Its working principle rests on System-Handles, plugins that put the core into communication with each of the protocols that are meant to be integrated into the platform. Once a system is integrated by means of a dedicated System-Handle, it can speak with any other system that is already integrated into the SOSS world.

The SOSS-ROS2 and the SOSS-FIWARE System-Handles serve as key enablers to integrate micro-ROS into the FIWARE ecosystem, a framework of open source platform components which can be assembled together and with other third-party platform components to accelerate the development of Smart Robotics Solutions.

Key contributions of Powered by FIWARE architectures to micro-ROS applications are:

* Interfacing with the Internet of Things (IoT), Robots and third-party systems, for capturing updates on context information and translating required actuations.

* Context Data/API management, publication, and monetization, bringing support to usage control and the opportunity to publish and monetize part of managed context data.

* Processing, analysis, and visualization of context information implementing the expected smart behavior of applications and/or assisting end users in making smart decisions

Find the full presentation below:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XJL2_FHcils" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

title: A brand new discovery mechanism in micro-ROS

author: francesca-finocchiaro

micro-ROS is now implementing client/server handshaking by discovery!

The discovery mechanism allows micro-ROS Clients to discover Agents in the network by UDP. If a Client doesn’t know of any Agent beforehand, it sends a discovery call by multicast and the reachable Agents respond by sending information about them, such as their IP and port. The Client matches automatically with the first Agent that provides information, and the communication between the matched entities proceeds in the usual way.

<img alt="Discovery" src="/img/posts/discovery.png" width="60%"/>

micro-ROS inherits its discovery mechanism from the [Micro XRCE-DDS library](https://micro-xrce-dds.docs.eprosima.com/en/latest/client.html#discovery-profile), which is then implemented in the RMW layer. Discovery is accessible by default at the Client level when using UDP transport, and can be activated in the Agent by using the `-d` flag when running it from terminal with the [snap command](https://discourse.ros.org/t/micro-xrce-dds-agent-now-on-snap/16523):

If you’re running instead the daemonized version of the Agent via the provided snap service, you can turn on the discovery mechanism like this:

Find [here](https://github.com/micro-ROS/micro-ROS-demos/tree/foxy/rclc/autodiscover_agent) an example showing how to use this new feature!

title: micro-ROS is now Associate Member of the Zephyr Project

author: francesca-finocchiaro

micro-ROS is now an Associate Partner of the [Zephyr Project](https://www.zephyrproject.org/)!

<img alt="Zephyr" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Zephyr-logo.png" width="45%"/>

Zephyr is a scalable open source Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) designed to fit resource constrained and embedded systems, with safety and security in mind. It forms part of [the Linux Foundation](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/), which supports a wide range of open source projects. Zephyr targets the same range of systems and applications with deterministic and time-critical constrains as micro-ROS, such as connected sensors and actuators, microcontrollers and small IoT devices of all kinds. micro-ROS and Zephyr complement each other by allowing to easily create heterogeneous distributed robotic systems and also integrate these devices seamlessly into the ROS 2 ecosystem.

For additional information and the official press release by the Zephyr Project, follow this [link](https://www.zephyrproject.org/google-and-facebook-select-zephyr-rtos-for-next-generation-products/).

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