Lightweight Communications and Marshalling (LCM)
LCM is a set of libraries and tools for message passing and data marshalling, targeted at real-time systems where high-bandwidth and low latency are critical. It provides a publish/subscribe message passing model and automatic marshalling/unmarshalling code generation with bindings for applications in a variety of programming languages.
- Low-latency inter-process communication
- Efficient broadcast mechanism using UDP Multicast
- Type-safe message marshalling
- User-friendly logging and playback
- No centralized "database" or "hub" -- peers communicate directly
- No daemons
- Few dependencies
- Platforms:
- GNU/Linux
- OS X
- Windows
- Any POSIX-1.2001 system (e.g., Cygwin, Solaris, BSD, etc.)
- Languages
- C
- C++
- C#
- Java
- Lua
- MATLAB
- Python
LCM was originally developed for the MIT DARPA Urban Challenge team, and has since been used in many robotic and autonomous systems. Its users have included:
- BAE Systems
- Bender Robotics
- Carnegie Mellon University
- ETH Zurich
- Ford Motor Company
- Georgia Tech
- MIT
- Soar Technology
- University of Michigan
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
If you're using LCM for development or production, we'd love to hear about it. Send an e-mail to lcm-dev@googlegroups.com to let us know.