Mastering ROS for Robotics Programming - Second Edition

Understanding pluginlib

Plugins are a commonly used term in the computer world. They are modular pieces of software that can add a new feature to the existing software application. The advantage of plugins is that we don't need to write all the features in the main software; instead, we can make an infrastructure on the main software to accept new plugins to it. Using this method, we can extend the capabilities of the software to any level.

We need plugins for our robotics application too. When we are going to build a complex ROS-based application for a robot, plugins will be a good choice to extend the capabilities of the application.

The ROS system provides a plugin framework called pluginlib to dynamically load/unload plugins, which can ...