Making Parts Talk
Communication patterns, pub/sub, topics, and message passing.
What You'll Learn
- Explain the publish/subscribe communication pattern used in robotics
- Understand topics, message types, and one-to-many data flow
- Compare point-to-point vs broadcast communication strategies
- Define latency, bandwidth, and real-time requirements for robot communication
- Design a topic structure for a multi-sensor robot system
Why Communication Matters
Sensor data is useless unless it reaches the right place at the right time. Here's why communication is the backbone of every robot.
Publish-Subscribe Pattern
The most important communication pattern in robotics — how publish-subscribe works, why it's used everywhere, and its trade-offs.
Point-to-Point vs Broadcast
When to use pub/sub and when to use request-response — understanding the trade-offs between broadcast and directed communication.
Message Types
How robot data is structured into typed messages — common message types, serialization, and why strong typing prevents bugs.
Latency & Real-Time
What real-time means in robotics, why latency matters, and how fast different communication systems actually are.