The Robot Operating System (ROS) is the de facto standard for robotics development, yet efficiently managing the vast amounts of time-series data generated on edge devices remains a challenge. This session introduces a new open-source tool that bridges the ROS ecosystem with the Apache big data world. We will demonstrate how to convert ROS messages directly into Apache TsFile, a high-performance, columnar file format designed for IoT time-series data. This approach enables efficient local storage, compression, and seamless data synchronization with Apache IoTDB in the cloud. Attendees will learn about the tool’s architecture, see a live demo of edge data collection from a simulated robot, and understand how this pattern can be extended to build a complete edge-to-cloud data pipeline for robotics and industrial IoT.

Speakers:

Ansi Zhang: ROS + Apache TsFile | Edge Data Management

Ansi Zhang is an Associate Professor at Guizhou University, as well as a Visiting Scholar at Tsinghua University. His research focuses on UAV Big Data and Industrial Big Data, areas where efficient edge data management is critical. He has led 7 national and provincial research projects, published over 20 SCI/EI papers, and holds 19 patents and 10 software copyrights. As the creator of the ROS-to-TsFile tool, he bridges the gap between robotic data collection and the Apache big data ecosystem, enabling lightweight, high-compression storage for autonomous systems at the edge. At Community Over Code, he looks forward to sharing how Apache TsFile can revolutionize data pipelines in robotics and IIoT.