You're reading the documentation for a development version. For the latest released version, please have a look at Jazzy.

Kilted Kaiju (codename ‘kilted’; May, 2025)

Kilted Kaiju is the eleventh release of ROS 2. What follows is highlights of the important changes and features in Kilted Kaiju since the last release.

Supported Platforms

Kilted Kaiju is primarily supported on the following platforms:

Tier 1 platforms:

  • Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble): amd64 and arm64

  • Windows 10 (Visual Studio 2019): amd64

Tier 2 platforms:

  • RHEL 9: amd64

Tier 3 platforms:

  • macOS: amd64

  • Debian Bookworm: amd64

For more information about RMW implementations, compiler / interpreter versions, and system dependency versions see REP 2000.

Installation

TODO

New features in this ROS 2 release

ament_cmake_ros

Add rmw_test_fixture for supporting RMW-isolated testing

Included two new packages which provide an extensible mechanism for creating a test fixture for RMW-based communication isolation. It is modeled closely after the rmw and rmw_implementation API.

The rmw_test_fixture package currently provides only the API, which could be implemented by an RMW provider for configuring their RMW for a test to run.

The rmw_test_fixture_implementation package provides the entry point for discovering, loading, and invoking the appropriate extension.

See https://github.com/ros2/ament_cmake_ros/pull/21 for more details.

common_interfaces

New PoseStampedArray message

Added a pose stamped array message to nav_msgs.

See https://github.com/ros2/common_interfaces/pull/240 for more details.

ros2cli

Action introspection

This allows to instrospect an action with the command line. Using ros2cli tools: ros2 action echo <action name>.

See https://github.com/ros2/ros2cli/pull/978 for more information.

rclcpp

Action generic client

Support action generic client, this is used to support actions in rosbag2.

See https://github.com/ros2/rclcpp/pull/2759 for more details.

rclpy

Static Type Checking

Added static type hints to ActionClient and ActionServer.

See https://github.com/ros2/rclpy/pull/1349 for more details.

Add support for generics in pub/sub/client/server/actions, Future/Task, and Parameter.

Publisher, Subscription, Server, Task, and Parameter should need no updates to add support for generics.

Client will need to be updated to resemble the following to get the improved type checking.

self._get_parameter_client: Client[GetParameters.Request,
                                   GetParameters.Response] = self.node.create_client(
                                    GetParameters, '/get_parameters',
                                    qos_profile=qos_profile, callback_group=callback_group)

ActionClient will need to be updated to resemble the following to get the improved type checking.

ac: ActionClient[Fibonacci.Goal,
                 Fibonacci.Result,
                 Fibonacci.Feedback] = ActionClient(self.node, Fibonacci, 'fibonacci')

Future will need to be updated to resemble the following to get the improved type checking.

log_msgs_future: Future[bool] = Future()

See https://github.com/ros2/rclpy/pull/1239, https://github.com/ros2/rclpy/pull/1275, https://github.com/ros2/rclpy/pull/1246, and https://github.com/ros2/rclpy/pull/1254/files for more details.

Various other small improvements and corrections have also been made throughout all of rclpy.

Python types can be statically checked using ament_mypy which wraps mypy.

EventsExecutor

Support an experimental events executor for rclpy, which is a port of the original rclcpp events executor concept.

See https://github.com/ros2/rclpy/pull/1391 for more details.

Rosbag2

Action introspection Rosbag2 support

Allow to record and play actions from a rosbag.

See https://github.com/ros2/rosbag2/pull/1955 for more information. Design document https://github.com/ros2/rosbag2/pull/1928.

Progress bar for ros2 bag play

Added a progress bar for ros2 bag play CLI, showing the bag time and duration, similar to what is seen in ROS 1.

See https://github.com/ros2/rosbag2/pull/1836 for more details.

Added support for replaying multiple bags with ros2 bag play CLI

To replay multiple bags, use the new -i, --input CLI option:

$ ros2 bag play -i bag1 -i bag2 -i bag3 [storage_id]

See https://github.com/ros2/rosbag2/pull/1848 for more information.

Added support for replaying messages chronologically based on their publication timestamp

This is exposed through ros2 bag play with a new --message-order {received,sent} option. The default behavior is to play messages in the order they were received.

See https://github.com/ros2/rosbag2/pull/1876 for more information.

Make snapshot writing into a new file each time it is triggered

See https://github.com/ros2/rosbag2/pull/1842 for more details.

New --sort CLI option in the ros2 bag info command

With new --sort CLI option user will be able to sort topics, services and actions by name, topic type or number of recorded messages.

See https://github.com/ros2/rosbag2/pull/1804 for more details.

Show size contribution of each topic with ros2 bag info

With new --size-contribution option together with ros2 bag info -v user will be able to see the size contribution of each topic in the bag file.

See https://github.com/ros2/rosbag2/pull/1726 for more information.

Added --log-level option to ros2 bag play and ros2 bag record to allow printing debug messages

See https://github.com/ros2/rosbag2/pull/1625 for more details.

rosidl_rust

Added rosidl_rust

A Rust idl generator was added to the list of default code generators.

See https://github.com/ros2/ros2/pull/1674 for more details.

ros2

Switch to using Pixi/Conda for Windows

This allows to easily manage dependencies, and to update them in the future. The installation process is significantly simplified. Instead of dozens of steps to install dependencies, it is just a couple of commands. It is much easier to update dependencies. The dependencies are installed in individual workspaces, with no “global” installation.

See https://github.com/ros2/ci/pull/802 and https://github.com/ros2/ros2/pull/1642 for more details. Visit Windows source install instructions to install it on Windows.

Support topic instances in DDS topics

Topic instances are a way of multiplexing the transmission of updates of several objects of the same logical kind over the same resource, i.e. the topic.

See https://github.com/ros2/ros2/issues/1538 for more information. You can also check the documentation: https://github.com/ros2/design/pull/340/files.

Changes since the Jazzy release

common_interfaces

Added NV12 to pixel formats

Added NV12 to pixel formats, which is a common output format of hardware-accelerated decoders

See https://github.com/ros2/common_interfaces/pull/253 for more details.

rmw_connextdds_cpp

Version bumped to 7.3

The RTI Connext DDS version was bumped to 7.3.0.

See https://github.com/ros2/ci/pull/811 for more details.

Connextmicro

deprecated Connextmicro

The RTI Connext Micro RMW package, rmw_connextddsmicro, is going to stop receiving updates in Kilted Kaiju, and be removed in a future ROS 2 release.

See https://github.com/ros2/rmw_connextdds/pull/182 for more information.

rosidl_dynamic_typesupport

Removing support for float128

Removed support for float128 because there are inconsistencies in the definition.

See https://github.com/ros2/rosidl_dynamic_typesupport/issues/11 for more details.

rmw_fastrtps_cpp

Renaming package from fastrtps to fastdds

fastrtps was renamed to fastdds. The names of the rmw implementations stay the same. XML Profile ENV strings will change.

See https://github.com/ros2/ros2/pull/1641 for more details.

ament_target_dependencies is deprecated

The CMake macro ament_target_dependencies() has been deprecated in favor of target_link_libraries() with modern CMake targets. The macro still works, but it emits a CMake deprecation warning at build time like this:

CMake Deprecation Warning at [...]/ament_cmake_target_dependencies/share/ament_cmake_target_dependencies/cmake/ament_target_dependencies.cmake:89 (message):
ament_target_dependencies() is deprecated.  Use target_link_libraries()
with modern CMake targets instead.  Try replacing this call with:

    target_link_libraries([...] PUBLIC
    [...]
    )

Try replacing the ament_target_dependencies() call with the target_link_libraries() call suggested by the warning.

For more information see ament/ament_cmake#572 and ament/ament_cmake#292.

launch

PathJoinSubstitution

PathJoinSubstitution now supports concatenating strings or substitutions into a single path component. For example:

PathJoinSubstitution(['robot_description', 'urdf', [LaunchConfiguration('model'), '.xacro']])

If the model launch configuration was set to my_model, this would result in a path equal to:

'robot_description/urdf/my_model.xacro'

For more information, see ros2/launch#835 and ros2/launch#838.

rmw_zenoh_cpp

Tier 1

The rmw_zenoh_cpp is now considered Tier 1. There are many PRs (summarized in ros2/rmw_zenoh#265) in the ROS 2 core packages, such as:

  • Make the rmw pass all core tests.

  • Implement and document security

  • Make it work in the Tier 1 platforms.

  • Added Quality declarations

  • Added to REP 2005

  • A dedicated nightly CI job

  • Among others

For more information see https://github.com/ros2/rmw_zenoh/issues/265.

Development progress

For progress on the development of Kiltled Kaiju, see this project board.

For the broad process followed by Kilted Kaiju, see the process description page.

Release Timeline

December, 2024 - Platform decisions

REP 2000 is updated with the target platforms and major dependency versions.

Mon. April 7, 2025 - Alpha + RMW freeze

Preliminary testing and stabilization of ROS Base [1] packages, and API and feature freeze for RMW provider packages.

Mon. April 14, 2025 - Freeze

API and feature freeze for ROS Base [1] packages in Rolling Ridley. Only bug fix releases should be made after this point. New packages can be released independently.

Mon. April 21, 2025 - Branch

Branch from Rolling Ridley. rosdistro is reopened for Rolling PRs for ROS Base [1] packages. Kilted development shifts from ros-rolling-* packages to ros-kilted-* packages.

Mon. April 28, 2025 - Beta

Updated releases of ROS Desktop [2] packages available. Call for general testing.

Thu, May 1, 2025 - Kick off of Tutorial Party

Tutorials hosted at https://github.com/osrf/ros2_test_cases are open for community testing.

Mon. May 12, 2025 - Release Candidate

Release Candidate packages are built. Updated releases of ROS Desktop [2] packages available.

Mon. May 19, 2025 - Distro Freeze

Freeze all Kilted branches on all ROS 2 desktop packages and rosdistro. No pull requests for any kilted branch or targeting kilted/distribution.yaml in rosdistro repo will be merged.

Fri. May 23, 2025 - General Availability

Release announcement. ROS 2 desktop packages source freeze is lifted and rosdistro is reopened for Kilted pull requests.