Eclipse LunaDDS

Thursday, July 31, 2025 - 10:35 by Thilo Schmitt

Basics

This proposal is in the Project Proposal Phase (as defined in the Eclipse Development Process) and is written to declare its intent and scope. We solicit additional participation and input from the community. Please login and add your feedback in the comments section.

Parent Project

Eclipse Automotive

Proposal State

Community Review

Background

DDS is a proven pub-sub middleware standard for real-time, distributed systems. It is widely adopted in domains like aerospace, robotics, and increasingly in automotive. Yet, most DDS implementations today are:

Written in unsafe languages (C/C++) with significant memory safety and concurrency risks.
Proprietary or partially open, with licensing and usage restrictions.
Not tailored to automotive needs (e.g., AUTOSAR compatibility, ISO 26262 alignment, Eclipse S-CORE fit).

Given the automotive industry’s push toward software-defined vehicles, open architectures, and middleware consolidation, there is a clear need for a Rust-based DDS implementation that is open, safe, and designed from the ground up for real-time, safety-critical environments.

Scope

Eclipse LunaDDS provides a high-assurance, safety-critical implementation of the Data Distribution Service (DDS) middleware standard, written in Rust and tailored to automotive-grade requirements.

Eclipse LunaDDS focuses on delivering:

A complete DDS implementation, compatible with OMG DDS and interoperable with existing DDS ecosystems (e.g., CycloneDDS, FastDDS).
Written in Rust, leveraging its memory safety, zero-cost abstractions, and modern concurrency model.
Real-time and deterministic performance for safety-critical systems.
AUTOSAR compatibility and architectural alignment with and integration in Eclipse S-CORE.
Extensible architecture to support security profiles, Quality of Service (QoS) policies, and DDS-XRCE for resource-constrained ECUs.
Designed for ASIL decomposition strategies (e.g., pre-certifiable components, isolation-friendly).
Flexible deployment: on bare-metal, RTOS, Linux, and containerized environments.

The project will not target GUI tooling or simulation platforms in its initial phase, focusing solely on the runtime and core protocol stack.

Description

The Eclipse LunaDDS project aims to provide a high-assurance, safety-critical implementation of the DDS (Data Distribution Service) middleware standard, written in Rust and tailored to automotive-grade requirements. It delivers a deterministic, real-time data exchange layer for next-generation software-defined vehicles, ADAS, and autonomous driving systems.

The project embraces open-source values, enabling OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, and technology providers to take full ownership of a core software stack, free from vendor lock-in or opaque license models. Its alignment with the Eclipse Foundation's governance and transparency principles ensures long-term sustainability, community growth, and technological leadership.

Licenses

Apache License, Version 2.0

Legal Issues

None known.

Why Here?

The Eclipse Foundation is uniquely positioned to host open middleware technologies with a strong track record in embedded and automotive domains. Eclipse CycloneDDS, Eclipse iceoryx, and Eclipse Oniro are examples of successful technical ecosystems that Eclipse LunaDDS can align with.

The project's values are aligned with Eclipse:

Open development model and vendor-neutral governance.
Industry collaboration, especially with automotive working groups.
Proven ecosystem for driving adoption beyond early prototypes.

By joining the Eclipse Foundation, Eclipse LunaDDS can accelerate adoption, secure long-term sustainability, and become the de facto standard for safety-grade open-source DDS in automotive.

Future Work

Besides the mere DDS implementation itself, Eclipse LunaDDS wishes to integrate with Eclipse S-CORE. The exact architecture to achieve this will be defined in close collaboration between the projects.

Additionally, we will drive engagement through: