Let's look at a practical workflow to connect a CODESYS control application to a ROS2 workspace using an OPC UA bridge. Step 1: Configure the CODESYS OPC UA Server Open your CODESYS project. Add a object to your application tree.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of industrial automation, two major paradigms have traditionally operated in separate worlds: (fast, deterministic, robust) and robotic middleware (flexible, complex, intelligent).

A year earlier, the company had bought a heterogeneous fleet: articulated arms for welding, mobile platforms for parts delivery, and a set of inspection drones to chase defects down narrow aisles. They weren’t cheap. They ran ROS 2 under the hood—publishers and subscribers, nodes and topics—an open-source brain built for distributed robotics. The fleet was brilliant at autonomy, but it lived in a different language than the plant. Where CODESYS spoke IEC 61131 and deterministic cycles, ROS 2 spoke asynchronous messages and Quality of Service policies. For weeks, the two worlds passed each other like ships in fog—each efficient in isolation, each unable to fully leverage the other.

Step-by-Step Implementation: Building an OPC UA to ROS2 Bridge