Establishing remote networks for ROS applications via Port Forwarding

In a Robot Operating System (ROS) application, robot software is often distributed across multiple networked components, forming the ROS network, where every component acts as server and/or a client, and publishing and/or receiving robot data simultaneously. For indoor robots, a local ROS network, through a Wi-Fi hotspot, is sufficient. But for outdoor robots, a remote ROS network is needed to connect the ROS application to the cloud. Although a number of cloud-based solutions support this, implementing them is challenging, as they need to be configured to facilitate ROS's unique, multidirectional, and simultaneous flow of robot data. This article presents Port Forwarding as an alternative approach, which offers a private, secured, and a direct ROS-to-ROS, eliminating the need for a dedicated middleware and its configuration and setup complexities. But Port Forwarding has its own challenges; chiefly, the beforehand knowledge of Internet addresses of all networked components and the need to update port for...