# From the Desks of ROS Maintainers: A Survey of Modern & Capable Mobile Robotics Algorithms in the Robot Operating System 2

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.15236 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.15236/

## Key facts

- Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 28 Jul 2023.

## Built on by (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [InstructNav: Zero-shot System for Generic Instruction Navigation in Unexplored Environment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.04882/) (2024)
- [PACER: Preference-conditioned All-terrain Costmap Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.23488/) (2024)
- [ADAPT: An Autonomous Forklift for Construction Site Operation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.14331/) (2025)
- [RoboAtlas: Contextual Active SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.26046/) (2026)
- [Image2Sim: Scaling Embodied Navigation via Generative Neural Simulator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.05765/) (2026)
- [Racing With ROS 2 A Navigation System for an Autonomous Formula Student Race Car](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.14276/) (2023)
- [Towards Safe Path Tracking Using the Simplex Architecture](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.10559/) (2025)
- [RaGNNarok: A Light-Weight Graph Neural Network for Enhancing Radar Point Clouds on Unmanned Ground Vehicles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.00937/) (2025)
- [Federated Single-Agent Robotics: Multi-Robot Coordination Without Intra-Robot Multi-Agent Fragmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.11028/) (2026)
- [SPADE: Sketch-guided Path Planning Augmented with Diffusion Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.03512/) (2026)
- [FLINT: Fast Lightweight Inference for Traversability](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.26857/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The Robot Operating System 2 (ROS 2) is rapidly impacting the intelligent machines sector -- on space missions, large agriculture equipment, multi-robot fleets, and more. Its success derives from its focused design and improved capabilities targeting product-grade and modern robotic systems. Following ROS 2's example, the mobile robotics ecosystem has been fully redesigned based on the transformed needs of modern robots and is experiencing active development not seen since its inception. This paper comes from the desks of the key ROS Navigation maintainers to review and analyze the state of the art of robotics navigation in ROS 2. This includes new systems without parallel in ROS 1 or other similar mobile robotics frameworks. We discuss current research products and historically robust methods that provide differing behaviors and support for most every robot type. This survey consists of overviews, comparisons, and expert insights organized by the fundamental problems in the field. Some of these implementations have yet to be described in literature and many have not been benchmarked relative to others. We end by providing a glimpse into the future of the ROS 2 mobile robotics ecosystem.