Robotiq Releases ROS 2 Packages for Adaptive Grippers

In the event you run a Robotiq gripper within the Robotic Working System (ROS) 2 workspace immediately, you’re nearly actually operating PickNik Robotics’ ros2_robotiq_gripper. As of immediately, there may be an official Robotiq-maintained package deal, and it’s a drop-in substitute: identical package deal names, identical launch recordsdata, identical controller interfaces.

Model 1.1.0 is dwell in github.com/robotiq/ros, open supply below the BSD-3-Clause license, and it builds on Humble, Jazzy, and Lyrical from a single department.

4 packages ship below grippers/:

• robotiq_driver, the ros2_control {hardware} interface
• robotiq_controllers, the gripper command and activation controllers
• robotiq_description, the URDF and xacro descriptions, meshes, RViz configuration, and bringup launch recordsdata
• robotiq_hardware_tests, integration exams that run towards actual {hardware}

Descriptions ship for the 2F-85 and the 2F-140. This launch is hardware-validated on a 2F-85.

Beneath, the {hardware} interface runs on Robotiq’s open-source C++ SDK at model 1.0.0, pulled in as a submodule. ROS and non-ROS purposes now share one examined core, so a repair to how the gripper is pushed reaches each directly.

Why Robotiq Releases ROS 2 Packages for Adaptive Grippers

Robotiq grippers run in ROS 2 immediately as a result of the neighborhood put them there. The PickNik package deal, and each developer who filed a problem or a patch towards it, is the explanation a Robotiq gripper is an bizarre factor to search out in a ROS workspace. Loads of working cells rely upon it.

What modified is the demand. Bodily AI purposes are asking extra of those grippers than a traditional pick-and-place cell ever did: tighter management loops, extra of what the gripper studies, and deployments they anticipate to run for thousands and thousands of cycles. We wished at hand them probably the most optimized and maintained package deal we may.

So we took it on. These packages are the maintained successor to the neighborhood driver, with the upstream historical past and each copyright and writer tag carried throughout.

What modified

The floor API is a drop-in. The implementation is just not the identical package deal it was, and most of what modified got here from buyer and accomplice suggestions.

• A shared, versioned core. The {hardware} interface is a skinny layer over the C++ SDK, which follows semantic versioning from 1.0.0 and ships its personal hardware-free check suite. It additionally retires the vcs import step: the motive force hyperlinks libserialport by means of the SDK as a substitute of a forked serial library.
• Three distributions, one department. Humble, Jazzy, and Lyrical construct from the identical supply, with steady integration (CI) gating each pull request on all 3 and Rolling operating non-blocking. No one ought to need to plan a ROS improve round a gripper.
• Predictable bring-up. Activation and fault restoration are bounded by an activation_timeout as a substitute of operating open-ended, and a connection that can not be opened fails cleanly throughout configuration.
• One transaction per cycle. The trade with the gripper is a single Modbus operate code 0x17 read-write transaction, changing separate reads and writes on the wire. This makes it potential to attain a communication frequency of 200 Hz with the gripper at 115200 baud.
• Configurable {hardware} parameters. Serial and timing parameters dwell within the  block of your description relatively than within the driver.
• A faux gripper with actual semantics. Set use_dummy in your description’s block and the motive force runs the SDK’s faux gadget as a substitute of a port: no port opened, prompt activation, and the true plugin nonetheless loaded, so each controllers bind as they do on {hardware}. Distinct from use_fake_hardware:=true, which swaps in ros2_control'smock_components/GenericSystem.

Shifting from the neighborhood package deal

The migration is brief, and it’s documented within the launch notes. In an present workspace:

cd ~/ws/src
rm -rf ros2_robotiq_gripper serial
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/robotiq/ros.git
cd ~/ws
sudo apt set up libserialport-dev
rosdep set up --from-paths src --ignore-src -y --skip-keys libserialport
rm -rf construct set up
colcon construct

Three issues to know. --recurse-submodules issues, as a result of that’s how the SDK arrives. libserialport installs manually, since no rosdep key exists for it but, which can also be why these packages are a supply set up relatively than a bloom launch for now. And on Jazzy and Lyrical the motion kind is ParallelGripperCommand, following an upstream change in ros2_controllers and control_msgs, whereas Humble retains the older GripperCommand.

Citing a gripper in Jazzy/Lyrical

Instructions as of August 2026. Please refer on to the repository for the most recent model.

ros2 launch robotiq_description robotiq_control.launch.py com_port:=/dev/ttyUSB0

Add launch_rviz:=true to deliver up the visible mannequin alongside it. The bringup prompts joint_state_broadcaster, robotiq_gripper_controller, and robotiq_activation_controller, and holds its terminal, so command the gripper from a second shell:

ros2 motion send_goal /robotiq_gripper_controller/gripper_cmd 
  control_msgs/motion/ParallelGripperCommand 
  "{command: {title: ['robotiq_85_left_knuckle_joint'], place: [0.4], effort: [40.0]}}"

Place is the knuckle joint angle in radians, operating from roughly 0.0 open to 0.8 closed on a 2F-85. Effort and velocity are elective per-goal most limits.

To examine the mannequin with nothing plugged in, skip ros2_control totally and drag the slider:

ros2 launch robotiq_description view_gripper.launch.py

What’s subsequent

The subsequent substantial piece of labor is getting extra of what the gripper studies up by means of the ROS interface, beginning with object detection and measured effort. The repository can also be the place Robotiq’s different ROS packages dwell. The TSF-85 tactile sensor driver was up to date on this identical launch, with a brand new SDK-backed node, USB autodetection, a first-data watchdog, and RViz visualization with 3D markers and 2D heatmaps.

Past that, the roadmap follows what you construct. Points and pull requests filed on GitHub immediately inform what comes subsequent, precisely as they did for the package deal this one carries ahead.

Getting began

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/robotiq/ros.git
sudo apt set up libserialport-dev
rosdep set up --from-paths src --ignore-src -y --skip-keys libserialport
rm -rf construct set up
colcon construct
colcon check                  # unit exams, no {hardware} wanted

Gripper-only customers ought to change the ultimate colcon construct with the README’s

colcon construct --packages-up-to robotiq_description robotiq_controllers robotiq_hardware_tests

Points, pull requests, and suggestions are welcome on GitHub.

Study extra about Robotiq’s bodily AI at robotiq.com/physical-ai.