ROS for industry is a good choice or not?
I made exactly same question on ROS Course on Udemy with Edouard, but I wanted to hear from you about this...
This question is based more on the experience than the pure knowledge of ROS. I heard that ROS is not complete thread-safe when working with multiple subscribers/publishers and is not good to implement in machinery control for robust automation (like create an automation for a machine with ROS and put in main line production as part of automated system p.e.). What you think of that? Is ROS1 good for create robust automation? Is better to wait for ROS2 or ROS Industrial? Or you have another technology that would you choose instead of ROS (not talking about PLC or similar) in order to develop robots or robust machinery? A friend of mine in China tells me that ROS is used only for tests or in universities for robotics studies, but he never saw a robust machinery using ROS 24/7 on a shop floor (he works as supplier for Delta, Advantech and Staubli automation).
PS.: recently we saw the Acutronics closing the doors for not find investors for his H-ROS (https://www.therobotreport.com/acutro...). That's is not directly related to my question in some way?
Sorry for my bad english...
Whether it is a good choice or not is going to be very heavily influenced by the exact requirements of the application, the context in which it is going to be used and the skills of the engineers and developers involved.
As your question does not really provide any of those details, I'll only link you to the ROS-Industrial website. I would recommend to take a look at the public videos and slides of the ROS-Industrial Consortium Americas Annual Meeting and the videos and slides of the ROS-Industrial Conference 2019. The best evidence of the applicability of ROS in industrial contexts -- except visiting the factories and talking to the developers -- is probably watching those.
There isn't really any appropriate response to this sort of statement, as too many details are lacking, and it's impossible to make a statement like your friend did without qualifying it much more (in which contexts? Which requirements? What sort of applications? Etc, etc).
Interestingly, surveys show something else (from here):
Finally: ROS is certainly not perfect, neither ROS 1 nor ROS 2. But it doesn't have to be.
It has to be good enough.
I purposefully did not post my response as an answer, as I don't believe there is an answer.
If 10 years talking about ROS in industry have taught me anything, it's that the scope of potential application and of (non)functional requirements is just to broad, there is no single answer to the question whether ROS can (or should) be used.
I could have answered with that, but I doubt that is what @Hyperion came here to hear/read.
And of course: posting this on ROS Answers is most likely going to result in somewhat biased answers/comments. Not just because ppl posting here will have (great) experience with ROS, but at least the professional users have a tendency to be working for or with a company which uses ROS.
Dissenting opinions are rare on ROS Answers, but I can point to one: @Sebastian's answer to #q316916 ...(more)
Some related Q&As: #q237173 and #q52254 (old).
Ah that was a nice thread, I got another good chuckle reading that again.