Doosan Robotics, the South Korea-based developer of collaborative robotic arms, released open-source drivers compatible with ROS 2 Foxy Fitzroy. Foxy Fitzroy is the first ROS 2 release with a three-year, long-term support window.

This package provides the function to control all of the company’s cobot arms in ROS 2 Foxy Fitzroy. You can view more about the release on Doosan’s GitHub page. Open Robotics, the organization behind the Robot Operating System (ROS) confirmed that Doosan Robotics is the first cobot arm manufacturer to release open-source drivers into the ROS 2 Foxy distribution.

The ROS 2 package is compatible with the Doosan Robot Language (DRL), so operators who are familiar with Doosan’s robots but have basic ROS knowledge can still create robotics application. Doosan Robotics said it plans to support ROS 2 on various platforms, such as Windows and AWS RoboMaker, from the second half of 2021 and anticipates more robot applications incorporating cloud and AI technologies to be deployed.

Doosan Robotics has been supporting ROS Kinetic and ROS Melodic since 2019, and additionally distributed the ROS Noetic package in March 2021. To date, it has supported four versions of ROS.

“To meet the growing trend of robots using ROS, we developed the ROS 2 Foxy package to allow more local and global customers [to] build robot applications more conveniently and at a faster speed,” said Doosan Robotics CEO Chae Dong-hwi. “We will continue to enhance the functionality of ROS 2 and improve accessibility for our customers, while expanding the supported fields.”

Doosan Robotics spun out of parent company Doosan Group, one of the oldest and biggest companies in South Korea, in 2015. It first showcased its M Series cobot arms at event in 2017, but it has since expanded to 10 cobot arm models. The A Series, which consists of the A0509, A0509s, A0912 and A0912s, offers a payload range of 5kg to 9kg and mountable force torque sensors.

The H Series cobots, comprised of the H2017 and H2515, offer 1.7m reach and up to 25kg payload. The H Series cobots are equipped with six torque sensors on all six axes. Logistics and automotive applications are particularly well suited for the H Series, the company said.

Doosan Robotics is still offering its original M Series cobots that includes the M0609, M1509, M1013, and M0617. These cobots offer reaches between 900-1,700 millimeters and payload capacities of 6-15 kg. The four M Series cobots are equipped with six torque sensors in every joint.

You can compare the basic specs of all Doosan Robotics’ cobot arms in the table below:

Canonical and Open Robotics recently announced a 10-year partnership around extended security maintenance and enterprise support for ROS. ROS support will be made available as an option to Ubuntu Advantage support customers.