How Much Processor Does A ROS2 GoPiGo3 Use?

I have yet to migrate the Hands-On-ROS book’s IMU node, but have enough of ROSbot Dave to start answering

How much processor does a ROS2 GoPiGo3 use?

Processor Load (15 min as reported by “uptime”):

  • Base House Keeping: 0.13-0.15 (safetyShutdown, logLife, gopigo3_power, networkd-dispatcher) + plib/status
  • GoPiGo3 Node: 0.4-0.5 (0.52-0.62 w/housekeeping)
  • Adding YDLIDAR node: 0.15-0.27 (0.75-0.79 w/base+gopigo )
  • Adding Distance Sensor Node: 0.15-0.21 (0.9-1.0 w/base+gopigo+lidar)
  • All Up So Far (GoPiGo3 Node, LIDAR Node, Distance Sensor Node): 0.81-1.0 total
    52degC, average 535mA at 11v 5.88W

 
So the answer, w/o the IMU node, is roughly one full core of the four core Raspberry Pi 3B+.

For the convection cooled GoPiGo3 configuration, this would suggest probable headroom beneath the processor soft-throttling temperature of 60degC for the IMU, managed localization, and simple navigation.

More complex navigation and vision will probably eat into the additional headroom beneath the hard-throttling temperature of 80degC.

(Not sure of the connection, but it seems when our home A/C is running the processor temp drops about 8degC to 44degC and the total 15min processor load drops as low as 0.75)

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