ROS 2 Web Interface

A high-performance, modular web interface for interacting with ROS 2 topics, services, and actions via FastAPI.

This project provides a robust and extensible framework for dynamic interaction with ROS 2 systems over HTTP, supporting quick data access, service execution, and action handling. Designed with clean software architecture principles, it integrates ROS 2 with modern web technologies to enhance robotics development workflows.

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🚀 Key Features

• ✅ Dynamic Topic Subscription: Auto-detects ROS 2 message types.
• ✅ Full Message Support: Compatible with all ROS 2 message types, including sensor_msgs/Image.
• ✅ Media-Aware Responses: Serves images as image/png, other messages as structured JSON.
• ✅ Action Handling: Submit and monitor ROS 2 actions.
• ✅ Extensible Architecture: Modular handler system for easy feature expansion.
• ✅ Persistent Node: Background spinning ensures continuous ROS 2 interaction.
• ✅ API Versioning: Structured routes ready for scalable API evolution.
• ✅ Interactive API Documentation: Swagger UI available at /docs.

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📦 Requirements

• ROS 2 (Humble or newer)
• Python 3.8 or higher

Install all dependencies via:

rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y

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🔧 Installation

cd ~/ros2_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/mschweig/ros2_web_interface.git ros2_web_interface
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y
cd ~/ros2_ws
colcon build --packages-select ros2_web_interface
source install/setup.bash

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🚀 Running the Web Server

ros2 run ros2_web_interface ros2_web_interface

Access the API at: http://localhost:8000

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🔍 Interactive API Documentation

This project provides interactive documentation via Swagger UI:

• Access at: http://localhost:8000/docs
• Visualize available endpoints.
• Test API calls directly from the browser.
• Auto-generated from Pydantic models for accuracy and clarity.

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🧪 Testing Suite

ros2 run ros2_web_interface test_publishers --ros-args --params-file src/ros2_web_interface/test/params.yaml
pytest src/ros2_web_interface/test/

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🏗️ Architecture Overview

main.py               - ROS node + FastAPI startup logic
models.py             - Pydantic schemas for validation and documentation
ros/
  ├─ base.py        - Abstract handler interface (ROSInterface)
  ├─ topic.py       - TopicHandler for dynamic topic data
  ├─ service.py     - ServiceHandler for ROS service calls
  ├─ action.py      - ActionHandler for action management
  ├─ system.py      - SystemHandler for metadata operations
  └─ factory.py     - Dynamic handler factory
api/
  ├─ registry.py    - Central route registry
  ├─ topic_routes.py
  ├─ service_routes.py
  └─ action_routes.py

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📚 License

Apache License 2.0 — Optimized for professional ROS 2 deployments.

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🤛 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Help us enhance ROS 2 web integration by submitting issues, feature requests, or pull requests.

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Crafted with ❤️ by robotics engineers for real-world ROS 2 applications.