iRobot® Create® 3 Release I.0.0

This release is running ROS 2 Iron with the following interface library versions:

• irobot_create_msgs - 2.1.0
• cyclonedds - 0.10.3
• Fast-DDS - 2.10.1

Release Overview

For ROS 2¹ users, this is a feature release, and our first upgrade to ROS 2 Iron.
For iRobot® Education Bluetooth² users, there are no changes.
See below for details.

!!! warning
Be sure to download the correct release for your choice of middleware.

!!! note
In testing, this release appears to be fully compatible with ROS 2 Jazzy, as well. Please be sure to let us know if you run into any issues.

Changelog (from H.2.6)

ROS 2

• Topics
  • The robot can now be tele-operated via geometry_msgs/msg/TwistStamped messages on the cmd_vel_stamped topic. (You may also continue to use the cmd_vel topic; don't use both at the same time.)

1. ROS 2 is governed by Open Robotics. ↩

2. The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by iRobot is under license. ↩

iRobot® Create® 3 Release H.2.6

This release is running ROS 2 Humble with the following interface library versions:

• irobot_create_msgs - 2.1.0
• cyclonedds - 0.10.3
• Fast-DDS - 2.6.4

Release Overview

For ROS 2¹ users, this is a bugfix release.
For iRobot® Education Bluetooth² users, there are no changes.
See below for details.

!!! important
There were quite a few changes in H.2.5; it is recommended to also read that changelog.

Changelog (from H.2.5)

ROS 2

• Parameters
  • Robot now sets max_speed parameter properly when safety_override = full is set in application configuration (#558)

1. ROS 2 is governed by Open Robotics. ↩

2. The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by iRobot is under license. ↩

iRobot® Create® 3 Release H.2.5

This release is running ROS 2 Humble with the following interface library versions:

• irobot_create_msgs - 2.1.0
• cyclonedds - 0.10.3
• Fast-DDS - 2.6.4

Release Overview

For ROS 2¹ users, this is a bugfix release.
For iRobot® Education Bluetooth² users, there are no changes.
See below for details.

Changelog (from H.2.4)

Core Robot

• Overall
  • The robot uses less RAM when idle in this release than in previous releases.
• Webserver
  • Add hidden beta feature to use a user-supplied wpa_supplicant.conf file. Note that this workflow conflicts with the normal provisioning workflow, so it has not been added to the beta menu, so that it is not accessed by accident.

ROS 2

• Library Versions
  • Update Cyclone DDS from 0.9.0 to 0.10.3
• Parameters

  • Add ROS 2 parameter wheels_stop_threshold_sec to the /motion_control node. This parameter controls the amount of time that the robot will keep executing the last provided velocity command (on the /cmd_vel topic) before considering it stale and stopping the wheels. Default value is 0.5 seconds.

  • Add the following ROS 2 parameters to the /robot_state node to control (and disable) unnecessary ROS 2 publications to improve robot performance:

    • publish_hazard_msgs: default true. If set to false, the robot will not publish the /hazard_detection topic. Disabling this can noticeably reduce the CPU and RAM usage of the robot.
    • hazards_pub_fixed_period_ms: default -1. This controls whether the robot should publish hazard information even if the hazards are not changing. Set it to -1 to disable fixed period hazard publications and have hazards be published only when they change. This parameter will be ignored if publish_hazard_msgs is set to false.
    • raw_kinematics_min_pub_period_ms: default 25. This controls the minimum period at which the robot should publish raw kinematics information. If set to -1, it will disable raw kinematics publications. This can noticeably reduce the CPU and RAM usage of the robot. A value of 1 indicates that raw data should be published as soon as they are available. Values higher than 1 will throttle publications and will give some CPU improvement, but won't help RAM usage.
      The following topics are affected by this parameter: /imu, /mouse, /wheel_status, /wheel_ticks, /wheel_vels.
      If you are not interested in subscribing to these topics, it's recommended to set this parameter's value to -1.
    • publish_odom_tfs: default true. If set to false, the robot will not publish odometry information in the /tf topic. This can reduce the CPU and RAM usage of the robot if not needed. Note: this parameter is independent from raw_kinematics_min_pub_period_ms

    As a summary, the best performance can be obtained via

    robot_state:
      ros__parameters:
        publish_hazard_msgs: false
        publish_odom_tfs: false
        raw_kinematics_min_pub_period_ms: -1
    

    Note that publish_odom_tfs: true is required to interact with the navigation stack.

    This new version changes the default timing of some ROS 2 topics to improve the CPU performance.
    To restore the previous behavior users can use the following configuration

    robot_state:
      ros__parameters:
        hazards_pub_fixed_period_ms: 16
        raw_kinematics_min_pub_period_ms: 1
    

1. ROS 2 is governed by Open Robotics. ↩

2. The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by iRobot is under license. ↩

iRobot® Create® 3 Release H.2.4

This release is running ROS 2 Humble with the following interface library versions:

• irobot_create_msgs - 2.1.0
• cyclonedds - 0.9.0
• Fast-DDS - 2.6.4

Release Overview

For ROS 2¹ users, this is a bugfix release.
For iRobot® Education Bluetooth² users, there are no changes.
See below for details.

Changelog (from H.2.3)

Core Robot

• Webserver
  • Add beta feature to disconnect from wlan0 and forget the SSID (#110)
• Power Management
  • Robot will now change its light ring to "spinning red" when the battery level dips below 3%, and will explicitly call the /robot_power service when it falls below 2%.

ROS 2

• Actions
  • The /rotate_angle action no longer accepts overriding goals; an ongoing goal must be completed (successfully or unsuccessfully) before a new goal will be accepted. (#351)
  • Improve reliability of robot docking and undocking.

1. ROS 2 is governed by Open Robotics. ↩

2. The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by iRobot is under license. ↩

iRobot® Create® 3 Release G.5.4

This release is running ROS 2 Galactic with the following interface library versions:

• irobot_create_msgs - 1.2.4
• cyclonedds - 0.8.1
• Fast-DDS - 2.3.3

Release Overview

For ROS 2¹ users, this is a bugfix release.
For iRobot® Education Bluetooth² users, there are no changes.
See below for details.

Changelog (from G.5.3)

Core Robot

• Webserver
  • Add beta feature to disconnect from wlan0 and forget the SSID (#110)
• Power Management
  • Robot will now change its light ring to "spinning red" when the battery level dips below 3%, and will explicitly call the /robot_power service when it falls below 2%.

ROS 2

• Actions
  • The /rotate_angle action no longer accepts overriding goals; an ongoing goal must be completed (successfully or unsuccessfully) before a new goal will be accepted. (#351)
  • Improve reliability of robot docking and undocking.

1. ROS 2 is governed by Open Robotics. ↩

2. The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by iRobot is under license. ↩

iRobot® Create® 3 Release H.2.3

This release is running ROS 2 Humble with the following interface library versions:

• irobot_create_msgs - 2.1.0
• cyclonedds - 0.9.0
• Fast-DDS - 2.6.4

Release Overview

For ROS 2¹ users, this is a bugfix release.
For iRobot® Education Bluetooth² users, there are no changes.
See below for details.

Changelog (from H.2.2)

Core Robot

• Webserver
  • Fix to the provisioning flow affecting some users (#395)
  • Factory reset now properly resets ntpd.conf.
  • Factory reset now resets the RMW to Fast DDS (default for Humble).

ROS 2

• Publications
  • The cliff_intensity topic will no longer report values less than zero.
  • The kidnap_status timestamp is now correct.

1. ROS 2 is governed by Open Robotics. ↩

2. The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by iRobot is under license. ↩

iRobot® Create® 3 Release G.5.3

This release is running ROS 2 Galactic with the following interface library versions:

• irobot_create_msgs - 1.2.4
• cyclonedds - 0.8.1
• Fast-DDS - 2.3.3

Release Overview

For ROS 2¹ users, this is a bugfix release.
For iRobot® Education Bluetooth² users, there are no changes.
See below for details.

Changelog (from G.5.2)

Core Robot

• Webserver
  • Fix to the provisioning flow affecting some users (#395)
  • ntpd.conf is now reset upon factory reset.

ROS 2

• Publications
  • The cliff_intensity topic will no longer report values less than zero.
  • The kidnap_status timestamp is now correct.

1. ROS 2 is governed by Open Robotics. ↩

2. The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by iRobot is under license. ↩

iRobot® Create® 3 Release H.2.2

This release is running ROS 2 Humble with the following interface library versions:

• irobot_create_msgs - 2.1.0
• cyclonedds - 0.9.0
• Fast-DDS - 2.6.4

Release Overview

For ROS 2¹ users, this is a bugfix release.
For iRobot® Education Bluetooth² users, there are no changes.
See below for details.

Changelog (from H.2.1)

ROS 2

• Client Library
  • Set lock free queue MAX_SEMA_SPINS = 0 (irobot-ros/events-executor#20)

1. ROS 2 is governed by Open Robotics. ↩

2. The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by iRobot is under license. ↩

iRobot® Create® 3 Release G.5.2

This release is running ROS 2 Galactic with the following interface library versions:

• irobot_create_msgs - 1.2.4
• cyclonedds - 0.8.1
• Fast-DDS - 2.3.3

Release Overview

For ROS 2¹ users, this is a bugfix release.
For iRobot® Education Bluetooth² users, there are no changes.
See below for details.

Changelog (from G.5.1)

ROS 2

• Client Library
  • Set lock free queue MAX_SEMA_SPINS = 0 (irobotros/rclcpp#111)

1. ROS 2 is governed by Open Robotics. ↩

2. The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by iRobot is under license. ↩

iRobot® Create® 3 Release H.2.1

This release is running ROS 2 Humble with the following interface library versions:

• irobot_create_msgs - 2.1.0
• cyclonedds - 0.9.0
• Fast-DDS - 2.6.4

Release Overview

For ROS 2¹ users, this is primarily a feature release.
For iRobot® Education Bluetooth² users, this is a bugfix release.
See below for details.

Changelog (from H.1.2)

ROS 2

• Publications
  • Add /cliff_intensity topic (#320)
  • Add tf frame for the IMU (called imu), to which the /imu topic is now connected
• Middleware
  • Allow the use of ; characters in Fast-DDS Discovery Server configuration (#400)
  • Beta: Allow user to provide an XML configuration file for their preferred middleware (#407)

Core Robot

• Webserver / OS
  • Beta: Allow user full control to edit ntp.conf (#333)
  • Remove erroneous log messages about the robot's lost Wi-Fi connection when it had never been connected in the first place

iRobot® Education Bluetooth protocol mode

• Fix device number for stall event to match protocol document (#410)

1. ROS 2 is governed by Open Robotics. ↩

2. The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by iRobot is under license. ↩