Robotics Working Group

Introduction

The Working Group is focused on identifying, prioritizing, and driving upstream the RTOS-side capabilities that the future of robotics requires, such as Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN), low-latency/low-jitter compute, and deterministic transports. The WG is explicitly not creating a new robotics framework on top of Zephyr, its scope is the RTOS-layer enablement that lets modern robotics stacks run well on Zephyr.

see https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/issues/108027

Objectives

The Robotics Working Group will serve as a focused forum within the Zephyr community to identify, prioritize, and drive upstream the RTOS-side capabilities that the future of robotics requires. The WG's technical focus is deliberately forward-looking, centered on:

• Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN): IEEE 802.1AS (gPTP), 802.1Qbv (TAS), 802.1Qbu/Qci, 802.1CB, and the driver, qdisc, and stack integration needed to make TSN a first-class capability in Zephyr rather than a vendor-specific add-on.
• Low-latency, low-jitter compute: scheduler behavior under mixed-criticality loads, IRQ latency characterization, cache/SMP determinism, and benchmarking methodology that reflects real robotics workloads (closed-loop control, sensor fusion, coordinated motion across nodes).
• Time synchronization as an RTOS primitive: gPTP/PTP stack maturity, hardware timestamping abstractions, and cross-node clock discipline suitable for distributed robots where synchronized action (not just synchronized observation) is a correctness requirement.
• Deterministic transports for robotics middleware: Zenoh and equivalent next-generation transports (or things like IEEE 1722), including their integration with Zephyr's networking stack, QoS handling, and interaction with TSN scheduling.
• Deterministic I/O and sampling: synchronized sampling, hardware-timestamped peripherals, and the abstractions needed so that compute, I/O, and the network share a single coherent timeline.
• Safety and certification posture: identifying the gaps between Zephyr's current state and what safety-oriented robotics deployments will require as the domain matures.
• Reference platforms and samples: canonical, robotics-shaped samples and boards the community can converge on for reproducible benchmarking and onboarding.

Deliverables should potentially include but are not strictly limited to:

• Robotics requirements document: a published, maintained summary of RTOS-level requirements gathered from robotics adopters.
• TSN / determinism roadmap: a prioritized, TSC-reviewed roadmap for TSN feature coverage and determinism improvements.
• Latency & jitter benchmark suite: a reproducible benchmark harness measuring IRQ latency, scheduling jitter, and end-to-end network latency.
• Reference robotics sample(s): at least one upstream sample demonstrating a realistic control-loop + networked-transport scenario over TSN-enabled Ethernet with gPTP.
• Quarterly report to the TSC: summarizing progress, blockers, and RFC/PR activity.
• Community touchpoints: a recurring public meeting, a Discord/mailing-list channel, and presence at Zephyr Developer Summit and at least one robotics-community venue.

Working Group Details

• Chairpersons:
• Co-chair:
• Next Election:
• Meets every TBD
• Online conference link and phone:
• Agenda and Minutes: Zephyr Robotics Working Group Meeting Agenda

Elections

Participants and Voting Member Nominations:

name	GH Handle	Company	Voting Member
Ioan Dragomir	@trupples	ADI	🔲
Jake Greaves	@greavesinator85	ADI	🔲
Kedareswara Rao Appana	@kedareswararao	AMD	🔲
Nagadheeraj Rottela	@nagadheeraj-amd	AMD	🔲
Venkatesh Odela	@venodela	AMD	🔲
Luis Ubieda	@ubieda	Croxel	🔲
Loic Domaigne	@ljd42	Doulos	🔲
Zacck Osiemo	@zacck	Gaiochos	🔲
Richard Osterloh	@rosterloh	Humanoid	🔲
Tom Burdick	@teburd	Infineon	🔲
Jerome Cho	@jeromecho	Infoblox	🔲
Gerson Fernando Budke	@nandojve	Leica Geosystems	🔲
Peter van der Perk	@PetervdPerk-NXP	NXP	🔲
Rui Sousa	@rpmsousa	NXP	🔲
Geoffrey Biggs	@gbiggs	OSRA	🔲
Benjamin Perseghetti	@bperseghetti	Rudis Labs	🔲
Jay Pacamarra	@jaypacamarra	Sanctuary AI	🔲