Robotics Security
RTPS
RTPS (Real-Time Publish-Subscribe Protocol) is the wire-level protocol that implements the DDS communication model. Standardized by the OMG as DDS-RTPS, it defines how DDS endpoints discover each other, exchange topic data, and signal liveness — typically over UDP multicast and unicast.
Definition
RTPS (Real-Time Publish-Subscribe Protocol) is the wire-level protocol that implements the DDS communication model. Standardized by the OMG as DDS-RTPS, it defines how DDS endpoints discover each other, exchange topic data, and signal liveness — typically over UDP multicast and unicast.
What it means
RTPS is the layer below DDS that engineers and security testers most often touch directly. RTPS uses UDP multicast for participant discovery (the SPDP — Simple Participant Discovery Protocol) and unicast for endpoint discovery and data exchange. The discovery mechanism is by default open: any RTPS-capable node joining the multicast group is announced to all other participants, and topic metadata is exchanged without authentication unless DDS Security (SROS2 in ROS 2 contexts) is enabled.
For offensive-security assessment in robotics deployments, RTPS testing covers: participant-discovery sniffing to enumerate the running system, topic enumeration to discover available data and control surfaces, replay and injection on multicast topics, and identification of misconfigured DDS Security policies.
Related terms
Authoritative sources
- DDS-RTPS specification (OMG) - OMG DDS specifications hub
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