How can you decide between ROS 1 and ROS 2?

ROS 1 is basically a framework that acts as a common ground for various hardware and software nodes. In any robotics application, there are many kids of sensors and actuators involved, each with it's own driver. ROS makes it easy for these components to communicate with each other by acting as a universal language for these components. ROS employs a publisher - subscriber model where data from a sensor/actuator is published on a topic in the form of a ROS message and is picked up by another sensor/actuator by subscribing to that topic. This facilitates efficient communication among various components that all have different drivers incompatible with one another.

The choice between ROS 1 and ROS 2 largely depends on your specific application and requirements. ROS 1 has been around longer and benefits from a large, established community, which can be invaluable for troubleshooting and support. However, ROS 1 is approaching its end of life, with support expected to end by 2025. In contrast, ROS 2 offers several advancements, including enhanced security features and ongoing development and support. Therefore, if you are starting a new project, I would recommend you to choose ROS 2 to leverage these modern features and ensure long-term support.

For organizations deciding between ROS 1 and ROS 2 today, we recommend using ROS 2. ROS 1 Noetic, the final ROS 1 distro is only officially supported through 2025 unless you’re willing to only rely on community support. The migration process typically involves using both versions of ROS until you’ve completely migrated to ROS 2. The differences between ROS 1 and ROS 2 fall into three main categories: Architecture Features Tooling/Ecosystem

One of the major decisions every Robotics developer needs to make is whether to go for ROS 1 or ROS 2. Despite ROS 2 being more scalable, secure and and cross-platform compatible, most developers opt for ROS 1 because of the most obvious reason - community support. ROS 1 being launched in 2007 has a large community of developers and contributors constantly updating the existing packages which are already in use extensively. This makes migration to ROS 2 difficult as the existing code base for every application will need to shift to new ROS 2 packages without such wide community support as of now. While tools like ros1_bridge exist, it is not always the most efficient option when dealing with high computation robotics applications eg - SLAM.

When deciding between ROS 1 and ROS 2, consider compatibility with existing systems and the migration effort. ROS 2 offers improved features like real-time capabilities, better performance, and enhanced security, but it requires adapting to new APIs and tools. Evaluate if your current setup can integrate with ROS 2 or if migrating would provide significant benefits. Assess the cost and complexity of transitioning versus sticking with ROS 1.

Deciding between ROS1 and ROS2 for your robotics project involves evaluating compatibility and migration needs. ROS1, established and widely supported, offers extensive libraries and community resources, ideal for projects requiring stability and familiarity. However, ROS2 provides improved performance, security, and flexibility, particularly in real-time applications. When considering migration, assess your project's requirements for scalability and future-proofing. You should consider the learning curve and support for necessary hardware and choose ROS2 if long-term adaptability and enhanced features are priorities, but stick with ROS1 if immediate deployment with proven tools is essential.

When dealing with robotics applications that do not require exceptionally high computational or scalability resources, ROS 1 is the best option. With a wide community support available, developing and deploying any application on ROS 1 is not a big deal anymore. However, for rather complex applications such as Visual SLAM and online Controls for Autonomous Vehicles or online Aerospace Control for UAVs, factors like - scalability, reliability and security need to be considered. ROS 2 with it's robustness and flexibility allows for large data handling and distribution by employing different communication protocols like - DDS, and also handles security through key management framework among different systems within the network unlike ROS 1.

Support and knowledge base is bigger for ROS 1, but this is quickly changing as the EOL for ROS 1 Noetic approaches. Also the community using ROS 2 is growing (in 2024 ROS 2 already has much more downloads than ROS 1). For professional robots, ROS 2 should be the way to go.

Why to settle down for less when you have amore developed and powerful tool to use? One reason maybe incompatibility problems, which used to be a widespread problem among hardware manufacturers. Second reason was and partly is the insufficient libraries of ROS2. For months there were problems and this forced many manufcaturers to turn back to ROS1.

A big factor for deciding between ROS1 and ROS2 is the sensor suite, hardware components and software libraries you use. If certain sensors have support for specific versions of ROS then the decision is made for you. If your sensors have support for the latest versions of ROS, it is always preferable to use the latest stable release ( as of now it is ROS2 Jazzy ).