Months later, with the system matured, the plant ran like a team moving with purpose. A line change that used to require half a day and two technicians now took minutes: engineers edited a ROS 2 behavior tree, CODESYS loaded the motion parameters, and the translator negotiated the transition. Mobile robots, once cautious, now flowed through aisles with CODESYS-supervised maneuvers and ROS 2-aware intentions—human workers felt safer, and throughput rose.
Both comply with modern standards—CODESYS with IEC 61131-3 and ROS2 with standard middleware (DDS). 2. CODESYS ROS2 Communication Architecture
: Modern Industrial PCs (IPCs) can run a real-time Linux kernel (like Ubuntu with PREEMPT_RT ). This allows CODESYS Control and ROS2 nodes to execute on the exact same physical hardware, minimizing wiring and latency.
: It adheres to rigorous functional safety standards (IEC 61508) required for heavy machinery and factory environments. The Strengths of ROS 2
Getting CODESYS (Structured Text/Ladder Logic) to talk to ROS2 (C++/Python) requires a middleware bridge. There are three primary ways to do this: 1. The Micro-ROS Approach
If using the OPC UA method, configure the CODESYS Symbol Configuration to expose your control variables. On the ROS2 side, write a bridge node that subscribes to your robot's /cmd_vel (command velocity) topic and writes those linear and angular velocity vectors directly into the CODESYS OPC UA tags. Step 4: Manage the Determinism Frontier
Recognizing the need for connectivity, CODESYS Group released the . This software component runs on the PLC (or a Linux container alongside it) and can map PLC variables to different protocols.
CODESYS runs on hundreds of different controller brands, while ROS2 runs on standard Linux environments (like Ubuntu). This flexibility prevents vendor lock-in.
The industry is seeing a massive shift toward "SoftPLCs" running on Linux. CODESYS has fully embraced this with its runtime for Linux ARM and x64 systems.
The future of this technology lies in tighter integration, such as native ROS2 support within the CODESYS runtime, reducing configuration effort and improving high-speed, real-time deterministic performance across the board.
The integration of CoDeSys and ROS 2 can be applied to various industries and applications, including:
Achieves extremely high frequencies ( 200 Hz to 1000 Hz ) with sub-millisecond jitter.