ROS 2 for Rust

Introduction

This is a set of projects (the rclrs client library, code generator, examples, and more) that enables developers to write ROS 2 applications in Rust.

Features and Limitations

The current set of features includes:

• Message generation with support for all ROS message types
• Publishers and subscriptions (including async variants)
• Loaned messages (zero-copy messaging)
• Dynamic message handling (runtime message introspection and manipulation)
• Tunable QoS settings
• Clients and services (including async variants)
• Actions (action servers and clients with async support)
• Timers (repeating, one-shot, and inert timers)
• Parameters (mandatory, optional, and read-only with parameter services)
• Logging with ROS-compliant logging utilities and rosout support
• Graph queries (topic/node discovery, endpoint information)
• Guard conditions and wait sets
• Clock and time APIs (including time sources)
• Worker pattern for managing shared state across callbacks
• Executor pattern for coordinating node execution

Some things are still missing however, see the issue list for an overview. You are very welcome to contribute!

Since the client library is still rapidly evolving, there are no stability guarantees for the moment.

Installation

Prerequisites

First, install Rust and the required system dependencies:

# Install Rust (see https://rustup.rs/)
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

# Install required system packages
sudo apt install -y git libclang-dev python3-pip python3-vcstool

# Install colcon plugins for Rust
pip install --break-system-packages colcon-cargo colcon-ros-cargo

Because of an issue in rclrs (#557), as a workaround, the following two packages need to be installed:

# Install workaround packages
sudo apt install -y ros-$ROS_DISTRO-example-interfaces
sudo apt install -y ros-$ROS_DISTRO-test-msgs

All ROS Distributions

rclrs is released on crates.io and you can add it to your project directly:

[dependencies]
rclrs = "0.7"

Due to different ROS 2 distributions having different levels of integration with rclrs, if you'd like to build and run the examples, please follow the corresponding section.

ROS 2 Lyrical Luth and Rolling

To run the examples, install the test_msgs and example_interfaces packages, clone the examples repository to your workspace, and build:

sudo apt install -y ros-rolling-example-interfaces ros-rolling-test-msgs
mkdir -p workspace/src && cd workspace
git clone https://github.com/ros2-rust/examples.git src/examples

Temporarily (as of 2025-01-21), the rosidl_rust repository which contains the code generator needs to be cloned as well:

mkdir -p workspace/src && cd workspace
git clone https://github.com/ros2-rust/rosidl_rust.git src/rosidl_rust

The above commands can be removed once an updated version of the generator is shipped with the next ROS 2 sync.

Build the workspace:

. /opt/ros/rolling/setup.sh  # Or source your ROS 2 installation
colcon build

ROS 2 Kilted Kaiju

For ROS 2 Kilted, clone the ROS 2 message packages to your workspace:

mkdir -p workspace/src && cd workspace
git clone -b kilted https://github.com/ros2/common_interfaces.git src/common_interfaces
git clone -b kilted https://github.com/ros2/example_interfaces.git src/example_interfaces
git clone -b kilted https://github.com/ros2/rcl_interfaces.git src/rcl_interfaces
git clone -b kilted https://github.com/ros2/rosidl_core.git src/rosidl_core
git clone -b kilted https://github.com/ros2/rosidl_defaults.git src/rosidl_defaults
git clone -b kilted https://github.com/ros2/unique_identifier_msgs.git src/unique_identifier_msgs

Temporarily (as of 2025-01-21), the rosidl_rust repository which contains the code generator needs to be cloned as well:

git clone https://github.com/ros2-rust/rosidl_rust.git src/rosidl_rust

The above command can be removed once an updated version of the generator is shipped with the next ROS 2 sync.

Build the workspace:

. /opt/ros/kilted/setup.sh
colcon build

ROS 2 Jazzy Jalisco

For ROS 2 Jazzy, you need to clone the code generator and message packages to your workspace:

mkdir -p workspace/src && cd workspace
git clone -b jazzy https://github.com/ros2/common_interfaces.git src/common_interfaces
git clone -b jazzy https://github.com/ros2/example_interfaces.git src/example_interfaces
git clone -b jazzy https://github.com/ros2/rcl_interfaces.git src/rcl_interfaces
git clone -b jazzy https://github.com/ros2/rosidl_core.git src/rosidl_core
git clone -b jazzy https://github.com/ros2/rosidl_defaults.git src/rosidl_defaults
git clone -b jazzy https://github.com/ros2/unique_identifier_msgs.git src/unique_identifier_msgs
git clone https://github.com/ros2-rust/rosidl_rust.git src/rosidl_rust
git clone https://github.com/ros2-rust/examples.git src/examples

Build the workspace:

. /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.sh
colcon build

ROS 2 Humble Hawksbill

For ROS 2 Humble, you need to clone the code generator and message packages to your workspace:

mkdir -p workspace/src && cd workspace
git clone -b humble https://github.com/ros2/common_interfaces.git src/common_interfaces
git clone -b humble https://github.com/ros2/example_interfaces.git src/example_interfaces
git clone -b humble https://github.com/ros2/rcl_interfaces.git src/rcl_interfaces
git clone -b humble https://github.com/ros2/rosidl_core.git src/rosidl_core
git clone -b humble https://github.com/ros2/rosidl_defaults.git src/rosidl_defaults
git clone -b humble https://github.com/ros2/unique_identifier_msgs.git src/unique_identifier_msgs
git clone https://github.com/ros2-rust/rosidl_rust.git src/rosidl_rust
git clone https://github.com/ros2-rust/examples.git src/examples

Build the workspace:

. /opt/ros/humble/setup.sh
colcon build

Running the examples

After building, source your workspace and run the examples:

# In a new terminal (or tmux window)
. ./install/setup.sh
ros2 run examples_rclrs_minimal_pub_sub minimal_publisher
# In a new terminal (or tmux window)
. ./install/setup.sh
ros2 run examples_rclrs_minimal_pub_sub minimal_subscriber

Or:

# In a new terminal (or tmux window)
. ./install/setup.sh
ros2 launch examples_rclrs_minimal_pub_sub minimal_pub_sub.launch.xml

For detailed building instructions and additional setup options, see the in-depth guide.

Further Documentation

• Tutorial on writing your first node with rclrs
• Contributor's guide