NVIDIA Advances ROS 2 and Physical AI in Robotics

NVIDIA has unveiled significant advancements in robotics development, contributing to the Robot Operating System (ROS 2) framework and supporting the Open Source Robotics Alliance's Physical AI Special Interest Group. These initiatives, announced at ROSCon in Singapore, aim to establish ROS 2 as the premier platform for high-performance robotic applications and accelerate the deployment of next-generation physical AI.

The company's efforts focus on making ROS 2 the preferred framework for sophisticated robotic deployments, aligning with NVIDIA's vision of a future where robots are more autonomous, intelligent, and capable in diverse environments.

Driving Open Standards for Robotics

NVIDIA's commitment to open standards is evident through its contributions to ROS 2, including GPU-aware abstractions that enable the framework to manage CPUs and GPUs intelligently. This enhancement ensures consistent, high-speed performance and future-proofs the ROS ecosystem against rapid hardware innovation.

Additionally, NVIDIA has open-sourced Greenwave Monitor, a tool designed to help developers identify and resolve performance bottlenecks in robot applications. This aims to accelerate the development lifecycle for robotics engineers, fostering more robust and reliable systems.

Isaac ROS 4.0: Powering Physical AI Deployment

NVIDIA announced the release of Isaac ROS 4.0, a collection of ROS-compatible, GPU-accelerated libraries and AI models for the NVIDIA Jetson Thor platform. Developers can leverage Isaac CUDA-accelerated libraries, advanced AI models, and comprehensive workflows to enhance robot manipulation and mobility capabilities, streamlining the creation of advanced robotic solutions.

Industry Adoption and Collaboration

NVIDIA's open-source contributions and accelerated computing technologies are being adopted by industry leaders to train, simulate, and deploy advanced robots. Collaborations with companies like AgileX Robotics, Canonical, Ekumen Labs, and Intrinsic highlight the real-world impact of NVIDIA's initiatives on the robotics ecosystem.

AgileX Robotics

AgileX Robotics utilizes NVIDIA Jetson modules for AI autonomy and vision in its mobile robots. The company also employs NVIDIA Isaac Sim, an open-source robotic simulation framework built on NVIDIA Omniverse, for robust simulation and testing.

Canonical

Canonical is simplifying robot development by demonstrating a fully open observability stack for ROS 2 devices on Ubuntu, now available for the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Thor platform, which is critical for robotics and edge computing.

Ekumen Labs

Ekumen Labs has integrated NVIDIA Isaac Sim into its robotics development workflows, facilitating high-fidelity simulations for system testing and validation, alongside the generation of photorealistic synthetic data.

Intrinsic

Intrinsic is incorporating NVIDIA Isaac foundation models and Omniverse simulation tools into its Flowstate platform. This integration enables advanced robot-grasping capabilities, real-time digital twin visualization, and seamless AI-driven automation for industrial robotics.

KABAM Robotics

KABAM Robotics' Matrix robot leverages NVIDIA Jetson Orin and NVIDIA Triton Inference Server on ROS 2 Jazzy. This setup supports advanced security and facility management tasks in complex outdoor environments.

Open Navigation

At ROSCon, Open Navigation will showcase NVIDIA technologies, including NVIDIA Isaac Sim and NVIDIA SWAGGER. Founder Steve Macenski's keynote, "On Use Of Nav2 Route," will demonstrate advanced route navigation capabilities for autonomous mobile robots.

Robotec.ai

Robotec.ai and NVIDIA are collaborating on a new ROS simulation standard, now integrated within Isaac Sim. This initiative aims to streamline cross-simulator development and enable more robust, automated testing for robotics.

ROBOTIS

ROBOTIS utilizes NVIDIA Jetson for on-board computing and Isaac Sim for simulation and validation. Their AI Worker, powered by the Isaac GR00T N1.5 model, delivers enhanced autonomy and scalable edge AI solutions.

Stereolabs

Stereolabs' ZED cameras and ZED SDK offer full compatibility with the NVIDIA Jetson Thor platform, supporting high-performance multi-camera capture, low-latency perception, and real-time spatial AI vision for general-purpose robotics.

The Future of Physical AI

From foundational code contributions to powerful simulation tools and production-ready hardware, NVIDIA reiterates its commitment to providing the open-source community with the comprehensive platform necessary to build the future of physical AI. These advancements are crucial for developing the next generation of intelligent, autonomous machines.