ROS 2 Lyrical Luth brings GPU zero-copy and 15% CPU efficiency
Twelfth ROS 2 LTS release with asyncio support, GPU zero-copy data transfer, and reduced CPU usage.
ROS 2 Lyrical Luth is now officially available as the twelfth release of the Robot Operating System 2 middleware. This is a Long Term Support (LTS) distribution, with security and bug fixes guaranteed until May 2031. It targets Ubuntu 26.04 (Resolute) and Windows 11 as Tier 1 platforms, with RHEL 10 at Tier 2, and Ubuntu 24.04, macOS, Debian Trixie, and OpenEmbedded at Tier 3. The release also features a new turtlesim icon and a merch campaign supporting the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF).
Performance gains are a highlight. The new EventsCBGExecutor (Callback Group Events Executor) uses an events queue with support for multiple ROS time sources and multiple threads, consuming 10–15% less CPU than the existing Single and Multithreaded executors. For Python developers, the AsyncNode class allows asyncio operations within ROS callbacks, using significantly less CPU than the default SingleThreadedExecutor. Additionally, the rosidl::Buffer type enables zero-copy data transfer to and from GPUs when using the rmw_fastrtps_cpp middleware, eliminating expensive data copies for applications that publish GPU-processed data.
- EventsCBGExecutor reduces CPU usage by 10–15% with multi-thread and multi-time support.
- New AsyncNode class enables asyncio await inside ROS callbacks with lower CPU overhead.
- rosidl::Buffer type allows zero-copy GPU data transfer via rmw_fastrtps_cpp; Zenoh support coming soon.
Why It Matters
Robotics developers get more efficient execution, simpler async Python code, and faster GPU integration for AI workloads.