Implementation:CARLA simulator Carla ROS2 Interface

Knowledge Sources	CARLA
Domains	ROS Integration, Middleware
Last Updated	2026-02-15 05:00 GMT

Overview

The ROS2 class provides the native ROS 2 integration interface for CARLA, managing publishers and subscribers for all sensor data, transforms, and control messages.

Description

carla::ros2::ROS2 is a singleton class (accessed via GetInstance()) that bridges CARLA sensor data and actor state to the ROS 2 ecosystem. It manages:

Publisher creation and data publishing for all sensor types:

• Camera: RGB, depth, semantic segmentation, instance segmentation, optical flow, DVS events, normals
• Lidar: standard and semantic point clouds
• Radar: detection data
• IMU, GNSS: inertial and GPS data
• Collision, obstacle detection: event data
• Vehicle: speedometer, control commands
• Generic: float, string, and image data

Key methods:

• Enable(bool) -- globally enable/disable ROS 2 publishing
• SetFrame() / SetTimestamp() -- synchronize timing
• ProcessDataFromCamera(), ProcessDataFromLidar(), ProcessDataFromRadar(), etc. -- publish sensor data
• ProcessDataFromTransform() -- publish TF data
• ProcessDataFromControl() -- publish vehicle control data

Subscriber management:

• AddSubscriber() / RemoveSubscriber() -- register for external control input
• GetVehicleControl() -- retrieve control commands from ROS subscribers

The class creates DDS publishers/subscribers using the Fast-DDS library for the ROS 2 middleware layer, with topic names derived from actor names and types.

Usage

Use this class to bridge CARLA simulation data to ROS 2 nodes. It is activated via the CARLA server configuration and automatically publishes data for all active sensors.

Code Reference

Source Location

• Repository: CARLA
• File: LibCarla/source/carla/ros2/ROS2.h

Signature

class ROS2 {
public:
  static std::shared_ptr<ROS2> GetInstance();

  void Enable(bool enable);
  bool IsEnabled();
  void SetFrame(const uint64_t frame);
  void SetTimestamp(double timestamp);

  // Sensor data publishing
  void ProcessDataFromCamera(uint64_t sensor_type, ...);
  void ProcessDataFromLidar(uint64_t sensor_type, ...);
  void ProcessDataFromSemanticLidar(uint64_t sensor_type, ...);
  void ProcessDataFromRadar(uint64_t sensor_type, ...);
  void ProcessDataFromIMU(uint64_t sensor_type, ...);
  void ProcessDataFromGNSS(uint64_t sensor_type, ...);
  void ProcessDataFromObstacleDetection(uint64_t sensor_type, ...);
  void ProcessDataFromCollisionSensor(uint64_t sensor_type, ...);
  void ProcessDataFromDVS(uint64_t sensor_type, ...);

  // Transform and control
  void ProcessDataFromTransform(uint64_t sensor_type, ...);
  void ProcessDataFromControl(uint64_t sensor_type, ...);

  // Subscriber management
  void AddSubscriber(void *actor, const std::string &topic_name);
  void RemoveSubscriber(void *actor);
  bool GetVehicleControl(void *actor, rpc::VehicleControl &control);
};

Import

#include "carla/ros2/ROS2.h"

I/O Contract

Input	Type	Description
uint64_t | Type identifier for the sensor
Various | Raw sensor data buffers (images, point clouds, etc.)
uint64_t | Current simulation frame number
double | Current simulation timestamp

Output	Type	Description
DDS publishers | Sensor data published to ROS 2 topics
rpc::VehicleControl | Control commands received from ROS subscribers

Usage Examples

auto ros2 = carla::ros2::ROS2::GetInstance();
ros2->Enable(true);
ros2->SetFrame(frame_number);
ros2->SetTimestamp(sim_time);

// Publish camera data
ros2->ProcessDataFromCamera(sensor_type, stream_id, transform,
    image_width, image_height, fov, image_data);

Related Pages

• Environment:CARLA_simulator_Carla_Simulation_Runtime