ROS Nodes¶

ROS 2 nodes running in the Isaac ROS container and their data flow.

Node Overview¶

flowchart LR
    SIM["Isaac Sim<br/>(host)"]
    FOX["foxglove_bridge<br/>:8765"]
    H264["image_transport<br/>republisher"]
    TELEOP["teleop_node<br/>(twist_joy)"]
    NAV["Nav2<br/>(autonomous)"]
    BROWSER["Foxglove Studio<br/>(browser)"]

    SIM -- "/front_stereo_camera/.../image_rect_color<br/>/front_3d_lidar/lidar_points<br/>/chassis/odom, /tf, /clock" --> FOX
    SIM -- "raw image" --> H264
    H264 -- "H.264 compressed" --> FOX
    FOX -- "WebSocket" --> BROWSER
    BROWSER -- "/joy" --> FOX
    FOX -- "/joy" --> TELEOP
    TELEOP -- "/cmd_vel" --> SIM
    BROWSER -- "/goal_pose" --> FOX
    FOX -- "/goal_pose" --> NAV
    NAV -- "/cmd_vel" --> SIM

Auto-Start Nodes¶

These nodes start automatically when the container boots, via entrypoint scripts.

Foxglove Bridge

WebSocket bridge exposing all ROS 2 topics to Foxglove Studio
H.264 Republisher

GPU-accelerated H.264 encoding for camera streams (NVENC)
Teleop Twist Joy

Joystick input → robot velocity commands via Foxglove

On-Demand Nodes¶

Installed but not auto-started. Run manually as needed.

Teleop Keyboard

Terminal-based keyboard control for /cmd_vel
cuVSLAM

GPU-accelerated visual SLAM — stereo odometry and landmark mapping
AprilTag

GPU-accelerated AprilTag detection and 6DOF pose estimation
Nav2

Autonomous navigation — path planning, obstacle avoidance, goal tracking

Checking Running Nodes¶

# List all active nodes
ros2 node list

# See what a node subscribes to and publishes
ros2 node info /foxglove_bridge

# Check a specific topic's publishers and subscribers
ros2 topic info /cmd_vel --verbose