Original title: UPF4ROS2 for integrating planner independent task planning into ROS 2
Irene González, Miguel Á. González-Santamarta, Francisco Martín, Marco Roveri +2 · September 2026
Robots need automated planning to figure out steps to reach a goal. However, connecting these planners to robots is hard because they lack standard connections. To fix this, researchers built UPF4ROS2. This open-source tool connects the Unified Planning Framework, or UPF, to ROS 2Robot Operating System 2, a set of tools and libraries for building robot software., a popular system for running robots. UPF lets systems talk to different planning tools through one shared programming interface. The new tool links planning directly with execution modules so the robot can act. Testing showed UPF4ROS2 produced the same high-level behavior and the same plan lengths as the standard baseline over 20 dynamic missions. It also responded in less than a second during replanning tests, showing robots can use flexible planners without hurting their execution.
You are planning a road trip with friends. Each friend uses a different map app, and you have to manually copy the route from one app to another every time you change drivers. This takes time and often introduces errors. In this paper, the researchers created a common planning interface that works with any planner, so the robot can switch planners without manual conversion.
Roboticists building systems with ROS 2 can now integrate different task planners without writing custom interfaces. This saves development time and makes automated planning more accessible, which could lead to smarter robots in warehouses, homes, and factories.
The evaluation was limited to controlled replanning experiments and specific robotic scenarios with PlanSys2 and MERLIN2. Additional overhead was observed in a more demanding temporal-numeric benchmark. The results do not cover all possible robotic tasks or real-time constraints.
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UPF4ROS2 for integrating planner independent task planning into ROS 2 — Irene González, Miguel Á. González-Santamarta, Francisco Martín et al. — Scientific Reports — doi:10.1038/s41598-026-68232-z
Abstract licence: CC BY
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