Reference Architectures for Autonomous Systems

Reference architectures serve as standardised templates guiding the design of specific systems. They establish a common vocabulary, promote interoperability, and enable systematic validation.

Robot Operating System (ROS) provides a modular, publish–subscribe communication infrastructure widely adopted in research and industry. Its successor, ROS 2, adds real-time capabilities, security features, and DDS-based communication, making it suitable for production-grade autonomous systems ^[1]).

The ROS 2 architecture provides several advantages, including component-level independence from the provider, modularity enabling easier development as well as large community and libraries of packages for deployment. ROS 2 is now the backbone for major open-source projects such as Autoware.AI (autonomous driving) and PX4-Autopilot (UAV control).