ROS 2 alpha releases (Aug 2015 - Oct 2016)

This is a merged version of the previously separated pages for the 8 alpha releases of ROS 2.

We hope that you try them out and provide feedback.

ROS 2 alpha8 release (code name Hook-and-Loop; October 2016)

Changes to supported DDS vendors

ROS 2 supports multiple middleware implementations (see this page for more details). Until Alpha 8, ROS 2 was supporting ROS middleware implementations for eProsima’s Fast RTPS, RTI’s Connext and PrismTech’s OpenSplice. To streamline our efforts, as of Alpha 8, Fast RTPS and Connext (static) will be supported, with Fast RTPS (now Apache 2.0-licensed) shipped as the default.

Scope

As the “alpha” qualifier suggests, this release of ROS 2 is far from complete. You should not expect to switch from ROS 1 to ROS 2, nor should you expect to build a new robot control system with ROS 2. Rather, you should expect to try out some demos, explore the code, and perhaps write your own demos.

The improvements included in this release are:

• Several improvements to Fast RTPS and its rmw implementation

  • Support for large (image) messages in Fast RTPS

  • wait_for_service functionality in Fast RTPS

• Support for all ROS 2 message types in Python and C

• Added support for Quality of Service (QoS) settings in Python

• Fixed various bugs with the previous alpha release

Pretty much anything not listed above is not included in this release. The next steps are described in the Roadmap.

ROS 2 alpha7 release (code name Glue Gun; July 2016)

New version of Ubuntu required

Until Alpha 6 ROS 2 was targeting Ubuntu Trusty Tahr (14.04). As of this Alpha ROS 2 is targeting Ubuntu Xenial Xerus (16.04) to benefit from newer versions of the compiler, CMake, Python, etc.

Scope

As the “alpha” qualifier suggests, this release of ROS 2 is far from complete. You should not expect to switch from ROS 1 to ROS 2, nor should you expect to build a new robot control system with ROS 2. Rather, you should expect to try out some demos, explore the code, and perhaps write your own demos.

The major features included in this release are:

• Graph API functionality: wait_for_service

  • Added interfaces in rclcpp and make use of them in examples, demos, and tests

• Improved support for large messages in both Connext and Fast-RTPS (partial for Fast-RTPS)

• Turtlebot demo using ported code from ROS 1

  • See: https://github.com/ros2/turtlebot2_demo

Pretty much anything not listed above is not included in this release. The next steps are described in the Roadmap.

ROS 2 alpha6 release (code name Fastener; June 2016)

Scope

As the “alpha” qualifier suggests, this release of ROS 2 is far from complete. You should not expect to switch from ROS 1 to ROS 2, nor should you expect to build a new robot control system with ROS 2. Rather, you should expect to try out some demos, explore the code, and perhaps write your own demos.

The major features included in this release are:

• Graph API functionality: wait_for_service

  • Added graph guard condition to nodes for waiting on graph changes

  • Added rmw_service_server_is_available for verifying if a service is available

• Refactored rclcpp to use rcl

• Improved support for complex message types in Python

  • Nested messages

  • Arrays

  • Strings

Pretty much anything not listed above is not included in this release. The next steps are described in the Roadmap.

ROS 2 alpha5 release (code name Epoxy; April 2016)

Scope

As the “alpha” qualifier suggests, this release of ROS 2 is far from complete. You should not expect to switch from ROS 1 to ROS 2, nor should you expect to build a new robot control system with ROS 2. Rather, you should expect to try out some demos, explore the code, and perhaps write your own demos.

The major features included in this release are:

• Support for C data structures in Fast RTPS and Connext Dynamic rmw implementations.

• Support services in C.

• Added 32-bit and 64-bit ARM as experimentally supported platforms.

Pretty much anything not listed above is not included in this release. The next steps are described in the Roadmap.

ROS 2 alpha4 release (code name Duct tape; February 2016)

Background

As explained in a design article, we are engaged in the development of a new major version of ROS, called “ROS 2.” While the underlying concepts (e.g., publish / subscribe messaging) and goals (e.g., flexibility and reusability) are the same as for ROS 1, we are taking this opportunity to make substantial changes to the system, including changing some of the core APIs. For a deeper treatment of those changes and their rationale, consult the other ROS 2 design articles.

Status

On February 17, 2016, we are releasing ROS 2 alpha4, code-named Duct tape. Our primary goal with this release is to add more features, while also addressing the feedback we received for the previous releases. To that end, we built a set of demos that show some of the key features of ROS 2. We encourage you to try out those demos, look at the code that implements them, and provide feedback. We’re especially interested to know how well (or poorly) we’re addressing use cases that are important to you.

Intended audience

While everyone is welcome to try out the demos and look through the code, we’re aiming this release at people who are already experienced with ROS 1 development. At this point, the ROS 2 documentation is pretty sparse and much of the system is explained by way of how it compares to ROS 1.

Scope

As the “alpha” qualifier suggests, this release of ROS 2 is far from complete. You should not expect to switch from ROS 1 to ROS 2, nor should you expect to build a new robot control system with ROS 2. Rather, you should expect to try out some demos, explore the code, and perhaps write your own demos.

The major features included in this release are:

• Improved type support infrastructure, including support for C

• Preliminary Python client library, only publishers and subscriptions are supported. Beware, the API is subject to change and is far from complete!

• Added structures for ROS time in C API (still needs C++ API)

  • New concept of extensible “time sources” for ROS Time, the default time source will be like ROS 1 (implementation pending)

Pretty much anything not listed above is not included in this release. The next steps are described in the Roadmap.

ROS 2 alpha3 release (code name Cement; December 2015)

Background

As explained in a design article, we are engaged in the development of a new major version of ROS, called “ROS 2.” While the underlying concepts (e.g., publish / subscribe messaging) and goals (e.g., flexibility and reusability) are the same as for ROS 1, we are taking this opportunity to make substantial changes to the system, including changing some of the core APIs. For a deeper treatment of those changes and their rationale, consult the other ROS 2 design articles.

Status

On December 18, 2015, we are releasing ROS 2 alpha3, code-named Cement. Our primary goal with this release is to add more features, while also addressing the feedback we received for the previous releases. To that end, we built a set of demos that show some of the key features of ROS 2. We encourage you to try out those demos, look at the code that implements them, and provide feedback. We’re especially interested to know how well (or poorly) we’re addressing use cases that are important to you.

Intended audience

While everyone is welcome to try out the demos and look through the code, we’re aiming this release at people who are already experienced with ROS 1 development. At this point, the ROS 2 documentation is pretty sparse and much of the system is explained by way of how it compares to ROS 1.

Scope

As the “alpha” qualifier suggests, this release of ROS 2 is far from complete. You should not expect to switch from ROS 1 to ROS 2, nor should you expect to build a new robot control system with ROS 2. Rather, you should expect to try out some demos, explore the code, and perhaps write your own demos.

The major features included in this release are:

• Updated rcl interface.

  • This interface will be wrapped in order to create language bindings, e.g. rclpy.

  • This interface has improved documentation and test coverage over existing interfaces we currently have, e.g. rmw and rclcpp.

  • See rcl headers.

• Added support in rclcpp for using the TLSF (two-level segregate fit) allocator, a memory allocator design for embedded and real-time systems.

• Improved efficiency of MultiThreadedExecutor and fixed numerous bugs with multi-threaded execution, which is now test on CI.

• Added ability to cancel an Executor from within a callback called in spin.

• Added ability for a timer to cancel itself by supporting a Timer callback that accepts a reference to itself as a function parameter.

• Added checks for disallowing multiple threads to enter Executor::spin.

• Improved reliability of numerous tests that had been sporadically failing.

• Added support for using Fast RTPS (instead of, e.g., OpenSplice or Connext).

• A partial port of tf2 including the core libraries and core command line tools.

Pretty much anything not listed above is not included in this release. The next steps are described in the Roadmap.

ROS 2 alpha2 release (code name Baling wire; October 2015)

Background

As explained in a design article, we are engaged in the development of a new major version of ROS, called “ROS 2.” While the underlying concepts (e.g., publish / subscribe messaging) and goals (e.g., flexibility and reusability) are the same as for ROS 1, we are taking this opportunity to make substantial changes to the system, including changing some of the core APIs. For a deeper treatment of those changes and their rationale, consult the other ROS 2 design articles.

Status

On November 3, 2015, we are releasing ROS 2 alpha2, code-named Baling wire. Our primary goal with this release is to add more features, while also addressing the feedback we received for the previous alpha 1 release. To that end, we built a set of demos that show some of the key features of ROS 2. We encourage you to try out those demos, look at the code that implements them, and provide feedback. We’re especially interested to know how well (or poorly) we’re addressing use cases that are important to you.

Intended audience

While everyone is welcome to try out the demos and look through the code, we’re aiming this release at people who are already experienced with ROS 1 development. At this point, the ROS 2 documentation is pretty sparse and much of the system is explained by way of how it compares to ROS 1.

Scope

As the “alpha” qualifier suggests, this release of ROS 2 is far from complete. You should not expect to switch from ROS 1 to ROS 2, nor should you expect to build a new robot control system with ROS 2. Rather, you should expect to try out some demos, explore the code, and perhaps write your own demos.

The major features included in this release are:

• Support for custom allocators in rclcpp, useful for real-time messaging

• Feature parity of Windows with Linux/OSX, including workspace management, services and parameters

• rclcpp API improvements

• FreeRTPS improvements

Pretty much anything not listed above is not included in this release. The next steps are described in the Roadmap.

ROS 2 alpha1 release (code name Anchor; August 2015)

Background

As explained in a design article, we are engaged in the development of a new major version of ROS, called “ROS 2.” While the underlying concepts (e.g., publish / subscribe messaging) and goals (e.g., flexibility and reusability) are the same as for ROS 1, we are taking this opportunity to make substantial changes to the system, including changing some of the core APIs. For a deeper treatment of those changes and their rationale, consult the other ROS 2 design articles.

Status

On August 31, 2015, we are releasing ROS 2 alpha1, code-named Anchor. Our primary goal with this release is to give you the opportunity to understand how ROS 2 works, in particular how it differs from ROS 1. To that end, we built a set of demos that show some of the key features of ROS 2. We encourage you to try out those demos, look at the code that implements them, and provide feedback. We’re especially interested to know how well (or poorly) we’re addressing use cases that are important to you.

Intended audience

While everyone is welcome to try out the demos and look through the code, we’re aiming this release at people who are already experienced with ROS 1 development. At this point, the ROS 2 documentation is pretty sparse and much of the system is explained by way of how it compares to ROS 1.

Scope

As the “alpha” qualifier suggests, this release of ROS 2 is far from complete. You should not expect to switch from ROS 1 to ROS 2, nor should you expect to build a new robot control system with ROS 2. Rather, you should expect to try out some demos, explore the code, and perhaps write your own demos.

The major features included in this release are:

• Discovery, transport, and serialization use DDS

• Support multiple DDS vendors

• Support messaging primitives: topics (publish / subscribe), services (request / response), and parameters

• Support Linux (Ubuntu Trusty), OS X (Yosemite) and Windows (8)

• Use quality-of-service settings to handle lossy networks

• Communicate inter-process or intra-process with the same API

• Write real-time safe code that uses the ROS 2 APIs

• Run ROS 2 on “bare-metal” microcontrollers (no operating system)

• Bridge communication between ROS 1 and ROS 2

Pretty much anything not listed above is not included in this release. The next steps are described in the Roadmap.