MCAP - A Next Generation File Format for ROS Recording (ROSCon '22)
Channel: John Hurliman
Date: 2023-02-18

Data recording is a fundamental building block of robotics, enabling offline debugging, analytics, ML data collection, incident investigation, and more. But recording comes with unique challenges. It pushes the limits of I/O throughput, storage capacity, and available compute cycles, and juggles various trade-offs to stay resilient in real-world scenarios. MCAP is a next-generation file format designed to provide the right balance between throughput, storage size, and reliability tuned for your use case. Learn how this format compares against other recording formats through architecture and benchmarks, how to enable it today in ROS, and advanced topics such as streaming analytics.

Presented live by John Hurliman at ROSCon '22 in Kyoto, Japan. Slides available at http://download.ros.org/downloads/roscon/2022/MCAP%20A%20Next-Generation%20File%20Format%20for%20ROS%20Recording.pdf