Kilted Kaiju, the eleventh release of ROS 2, significantly enhances communication features and aims to make the latest version of the Robot Operating System more accessible, particularly for users unfamiliar with advanced middleware tuning.
Kilted Kaiju is also the 1.0 release of Zenoh bridge middleware, which provides full support for Zenoh binaries that can be downloaded and used immediately. The Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) said it expects this to be more efficient and secure compared with the current DDS middleware.
Users will be able to build robust and flexible robotic applications, particularly beneficial for universities and complex network environments, according to the release.
On the dev side, OpenCV 4.12 will be natively supported; no more cv_bridge Conda patches.
Here’s a more detailed look at some of the key features and changes introduced in Kilted Kaiju:
RMW implementations: Kilted Kaiju includes updates and improvements to real-time middleware (RMW) implementations, such as Zenoh, according to the ROS 2 documentation.
ROSBag2: The ROSBag2 recorder and player are now rclcpp components, allowing for better performance through Inter-Process Communication (IPC) and control of thread priority for compression.
RViz2: This visual editor for ROS 2 has been improved with the addition of plugins for DepthCloud, AccelStamped, TwistStamped, WrenchStamped, and Effort message types.
Action introspection: The ros2cli tool now allows users to examine an action using the command line.
Static type checking: rclpy, the Python API for ROS 2, has been enhanced with static type hints for ActionClient and ActionServer, improving code quality and maintainability.
Windows installation: Kilted Kaiju simplifies Windows installation by using Pixi/Conda for dependency management, making it easier to install and update dependencies.
Test fixtures: This ROS 2 release includes new packages for creating test fixtures for RMW-based communication isolation, providing a more flexible and extensible testing environment.
PoseStampedArray message: A new PoseStampedArray message has been added to the nav\_msgs package.
Rosbag2 improvements: ROSBag2 recorder and player now support rclcpp components and offer enhanced features like IPC and thread priority control for better performance.
Reset simulation time in RViz2: Users can now reset simulation time directly within RViz2.
Foxglove visualization: Kilted Kaiju supports visualizing ROS 2 data using Foxglove, a web-based visualization tool.
Eclipse Oxygen with RViz2: The community-contributed Eclipse Oxygen integration with RViz2 is available for use with Kilted Kaiju.
For complete documentation on the release, visit: https://docs.ros.org/en/rolling/Releases/Release-Kilted-Kaiju.html
Changelog for Kilted Kaiju: https://docs.ros.org/en/rolling/Releases/Kilted-Kaiju-Complete-Changelog.html
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Geoffrey Biggs on The Robot Report Podcast
Geoffrey Biggs, chief technology officer of the OSRF, was a guest on The Robot Report Podcast this week. He also presented a popular session at the recent Robotics Summit & Expo covering the Kilted Kaiju features and the sunset of ROS 1.
When asked what’s coming next, Biggs said, “A lot of interesting stuff coming in the future. Gazebo, of course, is still being developed. We’re looking forward to seeing some massive growth in Gazebo over the next few years. We are putting some of those funds from the OSRA (Open Source Robotics Alliance) to good use in Gazebo to understand where the simulator needs to go.”
“I think everyone knows the simulator field is a lot different from what it was 10 years ago,” he added. “There’s a lot more simulators coming up, and so we’re positioning Gazebo to be much more useful to what people need for simulators and robotics going into the future, not just reinforcement learning.”
He continued: “(Our users) want to be able to test their robot the same way they test Microsoft Word. They just repeat the testing over and over and over and find all the bugs, things like that, currently, it’s kind of difficult to do in Gazebo. Not impossible, but not easy. So we’re going to focus on things like that. Ensure that Gazebo provides a sound tool you can use to ensure that your robot software is fundamentally sound and robust before you give it to your customers.”
Kilted Kaiju debuts as ROS 1 reaches end of life
According to Biggs, on May 31, the last version of ROS 1 (Noetic) enters end of life. This is the same day Ubuntu Focal reaches the end of standard support. At this time, all support for ROS 1 will be taken up by the community.
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