Open Robotics

Open Robotics is the operating brand of the independent non-profit Open Source Robotics Foundation, Inc. (OSRF), founded in 2012 and headquartered in Mountain View, California. The organization was spun out of the Willow Garage lab and has served as the primary maintainer of ROS (Robot Operating System) since February 2013. OSRF develops and maintains key open-source robotics software: ROS and ROS 2, the Gazebo simulator and the Open-RMF interoperability framework, along with developer infrastructure (build servers, CI) and the ros2_control project. It runs the annual ROSCon conference and coordinates ROS 2 releases. In September 2016 a taxable commercial subsidiary — Open Source Robotics Corporation (OSRC) — was created, and in May 2017 both entities began operating jointly under the 'Open Robotics' brand. In 2018 the organization opened its first overseas office in Singapore. In December 2022 OSRC (together with the OSRC-SG entity) was acquired by Intrinsic, an Alphabet company, while the OSRF remained independent. In 2024 the OSRF established the Open Source Robotics Alliance (OSRA), a mixed membership and meritocratic initiative to which governance of the projects (ROS, Gazebo, Open-RMF, ros2_control and the infrastructure) was assigned to secure their long-term future. Operations are funded through grants and contracts (including DARPA and NASA), corporate sponsorship (Amazon, Bosch, Nvidia, Toyota Research Institute) and R&D and consulting services.