Thesis on Determinism and Scalability of ROS 2/DDS for Industrial Robots

About the role

This thesis project focuses on experimentally evaluating the performance and scalability of ROS 2/DDS in time‑critical industrial robot control environments. You will work within ABB's Robotics business, collaborating with experts in a fast‑moving, innovation‑driven setting.

Key responsibilities

• Characterize the timing behavior of ROS 2/DDS using representative distributed robot‑controller workloads.
• Evaluate selected ROS 2 executor configurations, DDS settings, and scheduling approaches under varying computational loads, communication frequencies, and system scales.
• Determine the deterministic operating and scalability envelope of ROS 2/DDS for distributed industrial robot control.
• Assess the suitability and limitations of the open‑source robotics framework for time‑critical industrial applications.

Required profile

• Currently pursuing a master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Embedded Systems, Automation, Robotics or a related field.
• Knowledge of real‑time systems and time‑critical computing concepts.
• Experience with distributed systems, communication middleware, or networking; ROS 2 or DDS experience is a plus.
• Programming skills in C++ or Python for system analysis, experimentation, or prototyping.

Required skills

• C++
• Python
• ROS 2
• DDS
• Real‑time systems
• Distributed systems
• Linux (including real‑time extensions)