Robot Operating System
In plain wordsFree, widely used software that serves as the plumbing of many robots, letting separate programs for sensors, planning and motors pass messages to each other, with a large library of ready-made tools.
A framework for writing robot software as a graph of independent processes (nodes) that exchange typed messages over named publish–subscribe channels (topics), request–response services and long-running actions; whatever its name suggests, it is open-source middleware with a large ecosystem rather than an operating system. It supplies standard message formats, build and packaging tools, 3D visualization, recording and replay of sensor data, simulator integration and thousands of community packages for device drivers, navigation, SLAMsimultaneous localization and mapping, n.: How a robot, drone or headset builds a map of an unfamiliar place while at the same time working out where it is on that map, using its cameras or laser scanners., motion planningmotion planning, n.: Working out how a robot should move from where it is to where it needs to be, without hitting anything and within the limits of what its body can do. and manipulationmanipulation, n.: A robot's use of arms, hands or grippers to change the world around it: picking things up, moving, pushing, opening, assembling or using tools.. ROS 2, a redesign announced in 2014, communicates through the Data Distribution Service (DDS) standard and supports real-time, multi-robot, embedded and security-sensitive deployments; the last ROS 1 release reached end of life in May 2025. ROS is the de facto standard in academic robotics and widely used in industry, and robot-learning systems commonly use it to connect learned policiespolicy, n.: An AI agent's strategy: the rule it follows to pick an action in each situation. Training in reinforcement learning means improving this rule until it earns high rewards. to hardware.
The policy publishes joint targets on a ROS topic at 50 Hz, and the arm driver subscribes.
Origin
Begun around 2007 by Eric Berger and Keenan Wyrobek, then Stanford PhD students, and developed at the robotics company Willow Garage, whose first ROS paper (Morgan Quigley and colleagues) appeared in 2009; ROS 1.0 followed in January 2010. Stewardship passed to the Open Source Robotics Foundation (founded 2012, renamed Open Robotics in 2017), and the first ROS 2 distribution appeared in December 2017.
Usage note
Usually pronounced 'ross'. Its value lies mainly in adoption: shared message types let components from different groups and companies interoperate.
Related
- roboticsrobotics, n.: The science and engineering of building robots and making them work: designing their bodies, sensors and motors, and writing the software that lets them see, plan and move safely.
- mobile robotmobile robot, n.: A robot that travels around by itself — on wheels, tracks, legs, propellers or thrusters — such as a robot vacuum, warehouse cart, delivery robot or planetary rover.
- motion planningmotion planning, n.: Working out how a robot should move from where it is to where it needs to be, without hitting anything and within the limits of what its body can do.
- simultaneous localization and mappingsimultaneous localization and mapping, n.: How a robot, drone or headset builds a map of an unfamiliar place while at the same time working out where it is on that map, using its cameras or laser scanners.
- physics simulatorphysics simulator, n.: Software that imitates how real objects move, collide, bend and fall, so robots and their AI can be designed, trained and tested on a computer before touching the real world.
Sources
- Quigley, M. et al. (2009). ROS: an open-source Robot Operating System. ICRA Workshop on Open Source Software.
- Macenski, S., Foote, T., Gerkey, B., Lalancette, C. & Woodall, W. (2022). Robot Operating System 2: Design, architecture, and uses in the wild. Science Robotics 7(66).