Lack of official support for robotic arms in Gazebo [ Ign/gz (Fortress/garden)] with ROS 2 – community gap or shift to other simulators?

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Hi everyone,

While setting up robotic arms for simulation in Gazebo ign/gz Fortress/Garden with ROS 2, I noticed a concerning gap in official support from major robot manufacturers. Here’s a summary of my findings:

:magnifying_glass_tilted_left: Key Takeaways:

  • No official Ignition Fortress support repos from any major arm manufacturer.
  • Some community efforts exist (notably from Andrej Orsula), including Ignition-compatible UR5, Kinova Jaco, and Franka Panda with MoveIt 2 support.
  • The only semi-official model I could find is Franka Panda in Gazebo Fuel.

:clipboard: Summary Table:

S.No Robot Maker Robot Name Official Repo (GAZEBO CLASSIC) Unofficial Repo (IGN FORTRESS)
1 Universal Robots UR3/UR5/UR10 universal_robot (ROS-I) 1. universal_robot_ign
2. ur5_rg2_ign
2 Kinova Gen3 ros2_kortex NOT FOUND
3 Kinova Jaco2 NOT FOUND kinova_j2s7s300_ign
4 Franka Emika Panda NOT FOUND panda_ign_moveit2
5 KUKA IIWA NOT FOUND KUKA-ROS2
6 ABB IRB abb_robot_driver NOT FOUND
7 FANUC LR Mate fanuc NOT FOUND
8 Yaskawa Motoman motoman NOT FOUND
9 UFactory xArm xarm_ros2 NOT FOUND

:red_question_mark: My Questions:

  • Is there any other ongoing work (official or community) for ROS 2 + Gazebo ign/gz robotic arm simulation support that I’ve missed?
  • What are the main reasons for this gap in support for arms?
    • Is it due to industry moving toward simulators like Isaac Sim / Mujoco for arm applications?
    • Or is it a lack of demand/community contributors for arms in Ignition?

Would love to hear thoughts from others working with simulated manipulation in ROS 2. Any insights or links to relevant projects would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

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IIUC: Money.

There’s no money in it for (big) industrial OEMs. They’ll not see any (significant) loss of sales if they don’t offer Gazebo (whichever version) support – or ROS 1 or ROS 2 support for that matter.

Also: there isn’t really a gap, insofar as there never has been any official support for any of these simulators by (m)any of these OEMs.

(for UR btw I believe you should be looking at UniversalRobots/Universal_Robots_ROS2_GZ_Simulation, and KUKA would be kroshu/kuka_robot_descriptions but I don’t believe they’ve added Gazebo support yet – any version)