After our announcement that Vulcanexus raised 10M €, some users asked me what is inside Vulcanexus and how they can use it.
Vulcanexus is a distribution of ROS 2, which includes many tools we develop and a third-party simulation tool (Webots).
Here is the list of the main components:
- Core:
- ROS 2 with the latest version and patches of Fast DDS
- ROS 2 Security, with some extended features.
- ROS 2 Discovery Server
- Tools:
- ROS 2 Monitor (GUI Tool: Protocol Statistics, Nodes, Topics…)
- ROS 2 Record and Replay (Native DDS recording)
- ROS 2 Shapes Demo (Play with the different ROS 2 QoS)
- ROS 2 Spy (Command line tool: Explore your nodes, topics…)
- Cloud:
- ROS 2 Router (WAN, Kubernetes, etc.)
- Micro:
- Micro-ROS (ROS 2 on microcontrollers)
- Simulation:
- Webots (Third-party Simulation tool)
On top of that, you have excellent documentation and tutorials, and you can get everything from a single point (Debian repo, sources, and docker).
Whenever ROS 2 base distribution is upgraded to a new release (Galactic, Humble, Iron…, etc.) or patched, we create the corresponding new version of Vulcanexus with all our components upgraded. The model we propose is similar to what happens in Linux and its different distributions, so Ubuntu is to Linux as Vulcanexus is to ROS 2.
As we announced a few days ago, on top of the effort we have been making creating these tools for the ROS 2 ecosystem, we now have more resources and funding, which will immediately translate into more features. We will announce our immediate roadmap in a few days.
So, why should you use Vulcanexus?
- The latest version of our Fast DDS middleware. Always updated with our latest patches.
- Tons of tools help you to deploy ROS 2 in complex scenarios.
- Extended Features.
- Comprehensive docs and many tutorials.
Last but not least, if you need more help, we also offer commercial support.