ROS2 x OpenTelemetry: End‑to‑End Telemetry for Robotics

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Hey there,

I’m releasing ros-opentelemetry, a production-grade library that instruments ROS 2 applications with OpenTelemetry for distributed tracing, correlated logs, and metrics — for both C++ and Python nodes.

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Why this matters

  • Follow a task across nodes (services, actions, topics) with connected spans.

  • Correlate logs with trace/span IDs for rapid root-cause analysis.

  • Backend-agnostic: send data to any OTel-compatible stack (e.g., SigNoz; Grafana planned).

What’s inside

  • ros_opentelemetry_cpp and ros_opentelemetry_py helpers to bootstrap tracers.

  • ros_opentelemetry_interfaces with a TraceMetadata message to propagate the trace context between nodes.

  • Detailed instructions on how to instrument your ROS2 code.

  • “Justfile” commands + Docker setup for a one-command demo environment.

Demo
The repo includes Just targets to bring up an example with MoveIt2-based C++ node + a Python task producer instrumented with OpenTelemetry and an OTel stack (e.g., SigNoz).

  • just docker-up-telemetry

  • just docker-up-example

  • or run locally with just run-example-locally (rViz).

Repo: ROS2 x OpenTelemetry: End‑to‑End Telemetry for Robotics
OpenTelemetry background: opentelemetry.io (traces/logs, language SDKs)

How this relates to existing work

  • Complements ros2_tracing (LTTng-based tracing of ROS 2 internals) by offering vendor-neutral OpenTelemetry export and cross-service propagation for app-level spans. If you already use ros2_tracing, you can keep it for low-level insights and layer OTel for end-to-end visibility.

I’m looking forward to your feedback.
Additionally, I will be presenting this library at ROSCon DE&FR 2025, and I would be happy to discuss it in person.

Thanks,
Sergei

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