Is ROS2 Ready for Enterprise Level Industrial Robot Deployment?

All answers to this question.

ROS2 was built specifically to address the shortcomings of ROS1, particularly regarding real-time performance and security. It uses DDS (Data Distribution Service) for communication, which is the same standard used in aerospace and defense. Many companies are now using ROS2 for the "high-level" intelligence (navigation, SLAM, AI) while keeping the "low-level" safety and motor control on the manufacturer's proprietary PLC. This "hybrid" approach gives you the flexibility of open-source libraries with the guaranteed uptime of industrial hardware.

   Answered 2025-10-05 by Melissa Jenkins

What specific middleware are you using for DDS, and have you tested the latency under heavy network loads across multiple robot units?

   Answered 2025-10-08 by Eric Murphy

• Eric, we are currently testing Fast DDS. In our simulations, the latency is stable enough for a fleet of 20 AMRs. The challenge we are hitting is the hand-off between Wi-Fi access points in the warehouse. While ROS2 handles the data well, the networking hardware is usually the bottleneck. If you can solve the roaming latency, ROS2 is more than capable of handling enterprise-level coordination without the "per-unit" license fees of proprietary software.

     Commented 2025-10-10 by Gary Stewart

We use ROS2 for our autonomous forklifts and it’s been incredibly stable. The community support for navigation stacks is better than any vendor.

   Answered 2025-10-12 by Kimberly Clark

• Kimberly makes a great point. The ability to pull in a pre-built SLAM package and customize it is a huge time-saver compared to waiting for a vendor update.

     Commented 2025-10-13 by Amanda Foster