I am pleased to announce the availability of Connext 7.7 LTS support for the new ROS Lyrical Luth LTS release. Connext 7.7 brings a number of enhancements that make it easier for ROS users to move from prototype to production systems.
Improved interoperability between ROS and native DDS applications. Because ROS imposes a specific scheme for naming DDS topics and types, ROS applications couldn’t historically interoperate with DDS applications that weren’t specifically developed for ROS compatibility. This includes DDS applications based on standards with their own naming schemes, such as AUTOSAR, GVA and UMAA. To overcome this, Connext 7.7 adds support for Topic and Type Aliasing to automatically map between ROS and conventional DDS names. This makes it much easier to incrementally migrate from ROS-based prototypes to production systems that mix ROS, DDS and other standards. Read below for details.
Connext Robotics Toolkit support for Ubuntu ARM64 in addition to AMD64. You can now be up and running with ROS 2 and Connext in less than 10 minutes on popular ARM platforms including Raspberry Pi and NVIDIA Orin. The one-step Debian installation includes ROS 2 Lyrical, rmw_connextdds and the full Connext product, including Connext tools and infrastructure services. See installation instructions below.
Improved performance, scalability and security. Connext 7.7 improvements include faster discovery with less network overhead, reduced memory footprint, and enhanced security. See What’s New in Connext 7.7 for details and a complete list.
Ready to get started? Read on for installation instructions and to see how to take advantage of Topic and Type Aliasing. And remember, the Connext Robotics Toolkit is free for academic and non-commercial use, research, prototyping and evaluation.
Best,
Jeel Ghughu
Product Manager
RTI
Topic and Type Aliasing
If you’ve ever tried connecting a standalone DDS application to a ROS 2 node, you’ve probably hit this problem: ROS 2 mangles topic and type names on the wire ( /vehicle/position becomes rt/vehicle/position, and type names get dds_:: and _ added). Discovery can fail simply because names do not match.
This matters especially in mixed ecosystems where naming conventions differ across standards and domains, for example GVA topic names and AUTOSAR-style service or event naming patterns.
Starting in Connext 7.7, one XML property addresses this:
<property> <value> <element> <name>dds.ros.enable_interoperability</name> <value>true</value> </element> </value> </property>
Add this to your Connext application’s participant QoS and it automatically generates aliases with ROS 2-mangled names. During discovery, if either the primary name or alias matches, the endpoints can connect. No code changes and no dedicated naming gateway are required, which helps reduce integration friction when moving toward production deployments.
For example, a Connext app publishing on topic Foo can also announce rt/Foo as an alias, and a ROS 2 subscriber on /Foo (which expects rt/Foo on the wire) can discover it.
In practical interoperability scenarios, this can help when integrating ROS 2 systems with DDS participants aligned to GVA or AUTOSAR naming conventions, as long as data models remain compatible.
For full behavior details, including security policy considerations, and backward compatibility, see the topic aliasing documentation.
Hands-On: Try It Yourself on Ubuntu (AMD64 or ARM64)
The steps below work identically on AMD64 and ARM64 if you’re on a Raspberry Pi or NVIDIA Orin-based platform running Ubuntu. For Windows and macOS, follow the instructions here.
⚠️If package or path names differ in your environment snapshot, use the official references listed at the end of this post.
1. Add the ROS APT repository
sudo apt install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt update && sudo apt install curl -y
export ROS_APT_SOURCE_VERSION=$(curl -s \ https://api.github.com/repos/ros-infrastructure/ros-apt-source/releases/latest \
| grep -F "tag_name" | awk -F\" '{print $4}')
curl -L -o /tmp/ros2-apt-source.deb \ "https://github.com/ros-infrastructure/ros-apt-source/releases/download/${ROS_APT_SOURCE_VERSION}/ros2-apt-source_${ROS_APT_SOURCE_VERSION}.$(. /etc/os-release &amp;&amp; echo ${UBUNTU_CODENAME:-${VERSION_CODENAME}})_all.deb"
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/ros2-apt-source.deb2. Add the RTI APT repository
sudo curl -sSL -o /usr/share/keyrings/rti-official-archive.gpg \
https://packages.rti.com/deb/official/repo.key
printf -- "deb [arch=%s, signed-by=%s] %s %s main\n" \
$(dpkg --print-architecture) \
/usr/share/keyrings/rti-official-archive.gpg \
https://packages.rti.com/deb/official \
$(. /etc/os-release && echo ${VERSION_CODENAME}) | \
sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/rti.list >/dev/null
sudo apt-get update3. Install the RTI Connext Robotics Toolkit
sudo apt-get install rti-connext-robotics-toolkit-lyrical-7.7.0-desktop
4. Register for an RTI license activation file
Submit the Connext Robotics Toolkit registration form to receive a license activation file that unlocks all Connext capabilities, including tools, security and infrastructure services. After you submit the form, RTI will instantly email you a license activation file (rti_license.dat) that you will need in the next step. (If you skip this step, you will use the default license activation file that only provides access to the Connext core DDS libraries.)
5. Install your RTI license activation file (rti_license.dat)
sudo cp /path/to/rti_license.dat /opt/rti.com/rti_connext_dds-7.7.0/rti_license.dat
If you skip this step, you will only have access to the Connext core DDS libraries, not all the features of the Connext Robotics Toolkit.
6. Source the environment
source /opt/rti.com/ros/lyrical-7.7.0/setup.bash
7. Verify the installation
echo $RMW_IMPLEMENTATION
Expected output:
rmw_connextdds
8. Run example nodes to verify end-to-end communication:
ros2 run demo_nodes_py listener & ros2 run demo_nodes_cpp talker
You should see the listener printing messages from the talker.
9. Run Administration Console
If you registered for a license activation file in step 4 and are running on an AMD64 system, you can launch the Connext Administration console by running the following command:
<span>/opt/rti.com/rti_connext_dds-7.</span><span>7.0</span><span>/bin/rtiadminconsole</span>
When Administration Console starts, it will discover and display the DDS Topics and entities created by the demo nodes you launched in the previous step. You can use Administration Console to see the DDS view of your system, including network topology, data types and Quality of Service configuration.
If you are on an ARM64 system, you can run Administration Console on a separate computer running Linux (AMD64), Windows or macOS. To install Administration Console, follow the instructions under “Other Platforms” on the Downloads page you received a link to after registering for the license activation file.
Links
- Introducing the RTI Connext Robotics Toolkit (previous post)
- RTI Connext Robotics Toolkit overview and license generation
- ROS 2 Lyrical documentation
- rmw_connextdds documentation (aliasing and interoperability)
