This project was created using RoboStack.
A lightweight testing environment designed for rapidly validating algorithms and converting them into Nav2 plugins.
Using Gazebo for initial path planning and control testing can be unnecessarily cumbersome. It forces developers to contend with physics-engine artifacts—such as odometry drift and positioning errors—which are distractions at this stage. Loopback isolates the control logic, allowing us to focus purely on algorithm verification before transitioning to high-fidelity simulations.
The official nav2_loopback_sim is readily available for Jazzy. However, since it hasn't been backported to the Humble apt sources yet, I created this standalone integration to provide equivalent functionality on Humble.
Why RoboStack & Pixi? (Click to expand)
Developing on a MacBook, I wanted a native ROS2 experience (using Rviz, RQT, etc.) without the heavy disk footprint and overhead of Docker. To achieve this, I chose RoboStack, managed via Pixi, to construct a lightweight environment.This setup proved perfect for my current research into path planning and control. It offers a compact workflow that allows me to test algorithms efficiently, completely avoiding the resource intensity and installation pitfalls often associated with Gazebo.
- pixi
curl -fsSL https://pixi.sh/install.sh | bash- clone tihs project
pixi install
pixi run colcon build[!WARNING] Do not use --symlink-install. Using symlinks currently causes nav2_loopback_sim to encounter errors during compilation.