If you run a Robotiq gripper in the Robot Operating System (ROS) 2 workspace today, you are almost certainly running PickNik Robotics' ros2_robotiq_gripper. As of today, there is an official Robotiq-maintained package, and it is a drop-in replacement: same package names, same launch files, same controller interfaces.
Version 1.1.0 is live in github.com/robotiq/ros, open source under the BSD-3-Clause license, and it builds on Humble, Jazzy, and Lyrical from a single branch.
Four packages ship under grippers/:
robotiq_driver, the ros2_control hardware interfacerobotiq_controllers, the gripper command and activation controllersrobotiq_description, the URDF and xacro descriptions, meshes, RViz configuration, and bringup launch filesrobotiq_hardware_tests, integration tests that run against real hardwareDescriptions ship for the 2F-85 and the 2F-140. This release is hardware-validated on a 2F-85.
Underneath, the hardware interface runs on Robotiq's open-source C++ SDK at version 1.0.0, pulled in as a submodule. ROS and non-ROS applications now share one tested core, so a fix to how the gripper is driven reaches both at once.
Robotiq grippers run in ROS 2 today because the community put them there. The PickNik package, and every developer who filed an issue or a patch against it, is the reason a Robotiq gripper is an ordinary thing to find in a ROS workspace. Plenty of working cells depend on it.
What changed is the demand. Physical AI applications are asking more of these grippers than a conventional pick-and-place cell ever did: tighter control loops, more of what the gripper reports, and deployments they expect to run for millions of cycles. We wanted to hand them the most optimized and maintained package we could.
So we took it on. These packages are the maintained successor to the community driver, with the upstream history and every copyright and author tag carried across.
The surface API is a drop-in. The implementation is not the same package it was, and most of what changed came from customer and partner feedback.
vcs import step: the driver links libserialport through the SDK instead of a forked serial library.activation_timeout instead of running open-ended, and a connection that cannot be opened fails cleanly during configuration. <hardware> block of your description rather than in the driver.use_dummy in your description's <hardware> block and the driver runs the SDK's fake device instead of a port: no port opened, instant activation, and the real plugin still loaded, so both controllers bind as they do on hardware. Distinct from use_fake_hardware:=true, which swaps in ros2_control'smock_components/GenericSystem.The migration is short, and it is documented in the release notes. In an existing workspace:
cd ~/ws/src
rm -rf ros2_robotiq_gripper serial
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/robotiq/ros.git
cd ~/ws
sudo apt install libserialport-dev
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -y --skip-keys libserialport
rm -rf build install
colcon buildThree things to know. --recurse-submodules matters, because that is how the SDK arrives. libserialport installs manually, since no rosdep key exists for it yet, which is also why these packages are a source install rather than a bloom release for now. And on Jazzy and Lyrical the action type is ParallelGripperCommand, following an upstream change in ros2_controllers and control_msgs, while Humble keeps the older GripperCommand.
Commands as of August 2026. Please refer directly to the repository for the latest version.
ros2 launch robotiq_description robotiq_control.launch.py com_port:=/dev/ttyUSB0
Add launch_rviz:=true to bring up the visual model alongside it. The bringup activates joint_state_broadcaster, robotiq_gripper_controller, and robotiq_activation_controller, and holds its terminal, so command the gripper from a second shell:
ros2 action send_goal /robotiq_gripper_controller/gripper_cmd \
control_msgs/action/ParallelGripperCommand \
"{command: {name: ['robotiq_85_left_knuckle_joint'], position: [0.4], effort: [40.0]}}"
Position is the knuckle joint angle in radians, running from roughly 0.0 open to 0.8 closed on a 2F-85. Effort and velocity are optional per-goal maximum limits.
To inspect the model with nothing plugged in, skip ros2_control entirely and drag the slider:
ros2 launch robotiq_description view_gripper.launch.py
The next substantial piece of work is getting more of what the gripper reports up through the ROS interface, starting with object detection and measured effort. The repository is also where Robotiq's other ROS packages live. The TSF-85 tactile sensor driver was updated in this same release, with a new SDK-backed node, USB autodetection, a first-data watchdog, and RViz visualization with 3D markers and 2D heatmaps.
Beyond that, the roadmap follows what you build. Issues and pull requests filed on GitHub directly inform what comes next, exactly as they did for the package this one carries forward.
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/robotiq/ros.git
sudo apt install libserialport-dev
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -y --skip-keys libserialport
rm -rf build install
colcon build
colcon test # unit tests, no hardware neededGripper-only users should replace the final colcon build with the README's
colcon build --packages-up-to robotiq_description robotiq_controllers robotiq_hardware_testsIssues, pull requests, and feedback are welcome on GitHub.
Learn more about Robotiq's physical AI at robotiq.com/physical-ai.