Robotics Middleware Framework (RMF)

The Open-RMF platform for multi-fleet robot management.

For specific rmf versions follow the instructions given below:

Installation Instructions

These are the current Open-RMF binary releases available:

RMF Version	Installation Instructions	Supported distros	Supported ROS2 versions
21.09	Installation instructions	Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.09, RHEL 8 (deployment only)	Foxy, Galactic

Install ROS 2 Humble

First, please follow the installation instructions for ROS 2 Humble. If you are on an Ubuntu 22.04 LTS machine (as recommended), here is the binary install page for ROS 2 Humble on Ubuntu 22.04.

Setup Gazebo repositories

Setup your computer to accept Gazebo packages from packages.osrfoundation.org.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y wget
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.osrfoundation.org/gazebo/ubuntu-stable `lsb_release -cs` main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gazebo-stable.list'
wget https://packages.osrfoundation.org/gazebo.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -

Binary install

Latest Open-RMF binary packages are available for Ubuntu Jammy 22.04 for the Humble and Rolling releases of ROS 2. Older releases are also available on Ubuntu Focal 20.04 for Foxy and Galactic. Most Open-RMF packages have the prefix rmf on their name, therefore, you can find them by them by searching for the pattern ros-<ro2distro>-rmf, e.g., for humble it would be:

apt-cache search ros-humble-rmf

RMF Demos

A good way to install the rmf set of packages in one go is to install the one of the main RMF Demos packages. This will pull all the rest of the Open-RMF packages as a dependency. The core of RMF demos is contained on the rmf_demos package. However, if you want to install it with simulation support, you should install the rmf_demos_gz or rmf_demos_gz_classic package which come with Gazebo or Gazebo Classic support respectively. As an example, to install the ROS 2 Humble release with Gazebo support package, you would run:

sudo apt install ros-humble-rmf-demos-gz-classic

Building from sources

If you want to get the latest developments you might want to install from sources and compile OpenRMF yourself.

Additional Dependencies

Install all non-ROS dependencies of OpenRMF packages,

sudo apt update && sudo apt install \
  git cmake python3-vcstool curl \
  -y
python3 -m pip install flask-socketio fastapi uvicorn datamodel_code_generator
sudo apt-get install python3-colcon*

Install rosdep

rosdep helps install dependencies for ROS packages across various distros. It can be installed with:

sudo apt install python3-rosdep
sudo rosdep init
rosdep update

Download the source code

Note all repositories now have a galactic-devel branch. New changes will be targeted for ROS2 Humble. If any change is compatible with ROS2 galactic they will be backported to the galactic-devel branch.

Setup a new ROS 2 workspace and pull in the demo repositories using vcs,

mkdir -p ~/rmf_ws/src
cd ~/rmf_ws
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/open-rmf/rmf/main/rmf.repos
vcs import src < rmf.repos

Ensure all ROS 2 prerequisites are fulfilled,

you can subsutitute your distro name for <your ros distro>

Example: for humble

cd ~/rmf_ws
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro humble -y

Compiling Instructions

NOTE: Due to newer changes in the source build, there might be conflicts and compilation errors with older header files installed by the binaries. Please remove the binary installations before building from source, using sudo apt remove ros-humble-rmf*.

Compiling on Ubuntu 22.04:

Install clang

sudo apt update
sudo apt install clang lldb lld

NOTE: We strongly recommend compiling Open-RMF packages with clang as compiler and lld as linker.

Compile using clang

Update colcon mixin which is a one time step:

colcon mixin add default https://raw.githubusercontent.com/colcon/colcon-mixin-repository/master/index.yaml
colcon mixin update default

Compile the workspace:

cd ~/rmf_ws
source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash

export CXX=clang++
export CC=clang
colcon build --mixin release lld

NOTE: The first time the build occurs, many simulation models will be downloaded from Ignition Fuel to populate the scene when the simulation is run. As a result, the first build can take a very long time depending on the server load and your Internet connection (for example, 60 minutes).

Docker Containers

Alternatively, you can run RMF Demos by using docker.

Pull docker image from open-rmf/rmf github registry (setup refer here).

docker pull ghcr.io/open-rmf/rmf/rmf_demos:latest
docker tag ghcr.io/open-rmf/rmf/rmf_demos:latest rmf:latest

Run it!

docker run -it --network host rmf:latest bash -c "export ROS_DOMAIN_ID=9; ros2 launch rmf_demos_gz office.launch.xml headless:=1"

This will run rmf_demos in headless mode. Open this link with a browser to start a task.

(Experimental) User can also run rmf_demos in “non-headless” graphical form, via rocker.

Run RMF Demos

Demonstrations of Open-RMF are shown in rmf_demos.

Roadmap

A near-term roadmap of the entire Open-RMF project (including and beyond rmf_traffic) can be found in the user manual here.

Integrating with RMF

Instructions on how to integrate your system with Open-RMF can be found here.

Open sourced adapters

A number of commercial robots, infrastructure systems, workcells and devices have been integrated with Open-RMF and links to their adapters are available in the awesome_adapter repository

Help us add to this list!

A helpful starting point for integrating your fleet with RMF is the fleet_adapter_template package.

ibyxz/rmf