MoveIt 2 Humble Release
We’re excited to announce that MoveIt has just been released for ROS 2 Humble, the latest LTS (long term support) distribution supporting Ubuntu Jammy 22.04. Starting now, Humble is our recommended target distribution for anyone who needs the latest features but requires stability.
What’s new?
The Humble release provides all the latest features and improvements:
- Hybrid Planning: use a (slower) global motion planner with a (faster) local motion planner to enable a robot to solve different tasks online and in dynamic environments
- TOTG: now default parameterization method
- Ruckig: improved time parameterization and jerk smoothing that allows for nonzero initial/final conditions
- MoveIt Setup Assistant: the entry point for using MoveIt, now for ROS 2 (still in feature branch)
- MoveIt Config Utilities: simplify loading parameters
- Lots of new ROS 2 drivers for arms (Universal Robotics and more announced soon)
Everyone who has done new LTS releases in the past probably knows that this can be a very time-consuming and error-prone endeavor. But since the latest MoveIt version 2.5 was cut from Rolling, we actually had a flawless transition to Humble without any issues whatsoever. This shows that the prior time investment for keeping up with Rolling actually pays off.
Example of supervised autonomy door opening with MoveIt 2 and the UR driver for ROS 2.
Try it!
With Humble, you can choose between using the MoveIt Debians (soon to be synced), running the stable humble branch, or using the main development branch. You can check out the install instructions for more details on the different distributions and branches. The tutorials with more information on getting started are also already available here. As always, we’re welcoming any kind of feedback or contributions.
PickNik and Fraunhofer IPA have applied MoveIt 2 to advanced robotic welding techniques. Watch the full video here
What’s next?
There is much more to come in the not too distant future. The main focus will be on two things: making MoveIt easier to use, and supporting more intuitive and advanced trajectories. Support for OMPL’s orientation constraints is finally being completed, and we’re determined to investigate solutions for more intuitive motions by default. Stay tuned for new planner features, IK solvers and reworked interfaces.
Our two GSoC students have already started working on much-anticipated features: Python support and multi-arm trajectory execution. PickNik Robotics summer interns are improving how BioIK is integrated into MoveIt as well as finalizing admittance control in ros2_control & MoveIt.