Running Autoware with rmw_zenoh: Planning Simulation and CARLA Demo

[hsule]

Hello community,

Autoware now supports rmw_zenoh as an alternative ROS 2 middleware. While CycloneDDS remains the default middleware, Zenoh is useful for several Autoware-related scenarios:

• Internet / cloud communication: useful for remote or cloud-connected deployments.
• Multi-vehicle namespaces: helps isolate traffic for different vehicles.
• Non-multicast networks: useful in environments such as 5G or routed networks.
• Reduced discovery overhead: helpful for wireless or larger distributed systems.
• Performance evaluation: provides another middleware backend to compare with DDS-based RMWs.

We recommend ROS 2 Jazzy with Autoware 1.7.1 or later, since it includes the GuardCondition use-after-free fix and does not require workaround patches.

For more detailed network configuration, please refer to the Autoware documentation:
Zenoh settings for ROS 2 and Autoware

Planning simulation demo

A simple way to try rmw_zenoh with Autoware is to run the planning simulation demo.

Prerequisite

Install rmw_zenoh_cpp (skip if already installed):

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ros-jazzy-rmw-zenoh-cpp

The only extra step for rmw_zenoh is to start the Zenoh router before launching Autoware. According to the rmw_zenoh README, this manual step may be removed in the future:

1. Start the Zenoh router:

# terminal 1
ros2 run rmw_zenoh_cpp rmw_zenohd

2. Launch Autoware with the planning simulator:

# terminal 2
export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_zenoh_cpp
source ~/autoware/install/setup.bash
ros2 launch autoware_launch planning_simulator.launch.xml \
  map_path:=$HOME/autoware_map/sample-map-planning \
  vehicle_model:=sample_vehicle \
  sensor_model:=sample_sensor_kit

After that, you can use Autoware in the same way as the normal planning simulation workflow.

Larger demo: Autoware + CARLA

As a larger demo, we also added rmw_zenoh support to autoware_carla_launch and confirmed that Autoware + CARLA can run successfully with Zenoh at the ROS 2 RMW layer.

Repository: https://github.com/evshary/autoware_carla_launch
Documentation: https://autoware-carla-launch.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Supported modes in autoware_carla_launch

The project can run in two modes:

• rmw_zenoh — Autoware communicates through Zenoh directly at the ROS 2 RMW layer using rmw_zenoh_cpp.
• ros2dds — Autoware uses CycloneDDS, bridged to Zenoh via zenoh-bridge-ros2dds.

In both modes, zenoh_carla_bridge connects CARLA and Autoware over Zenoh. With the new rmw_zenoh mode, Zenoh carries the ROS 2 traffic end to end.

Current status

• Planning simulation can run with rmw_zenoh.
• Single-vehicle and multi-vehicle Autoware + CARLA scenarios run with Zenoh.
• ROS 2 topics can be discovered and communicated through Zenoh.
• End-to-end Autoware + CARLA communication is working.

Feel free to give it a try, and let us know how rmw_zenoh performs in your environment. Feedback and suggestions are very welcome.