The ROS 2 autonomy stack is the software that ties the vehicle together. Each capability — perception, navigation, control — is a node, and they talk over a common bus, so we can develop and test one piece without the rest.
For engineers
We run ROS 2 for its real-time-friendly DDS transport and node lifecycle management. Safety-critical loops (depth, leak, failsafe) run outside ROS in firmware, so an autonomy crash degrades the mission but never the vehicle.