ROS 2 port for libQi

libQi is a C++ middleware that provides RPC, type-erasure, cross-language interoperability, OS abstractions, logging facilities, asynchronous task management, dynamic module loading.

Compilation

Clone this project in your ROS 2 workspace (under src/), and run colcon build.

C++ Example

The following example shows some features of the framework, please refer to the documentation for further details.

#include <boost/make_shared.hpp>
#include <qi/log.hpp>
#include <qi/applicationsession.hpp>
#include <qi/anyobject.hpp>

qiLogCategory("myapplication");

class MyService
{
public:
  void myFunction(int val) {
    qiLogInfo() << "myFunction called with " << val;
  }
  qi::Signal<int> eventTriggered;
  qi::Property<float> angle;
};

// register the service to the type-system
QI_REGISTER_OBJECT(MyService, myFunction, eventTriggered, angle);

void print()
{
  qiLogInfo() << "print was called";
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
  qi::ApplicationSession app(argc, argv);

  // connect the session included in the app
  app.start();

  qi::SessionPtr session = app.session();

  // register our service
  session->registerService("MyService", boost::make_shared<MyService>());

  // get our service through the middleware
  qi::AnyObject obj = session->service("MyService").value();

  // call myFunction
  obj.call<void>("myFunction", 42);

  // call print in 2 seconds
  qi::async(&print, qi::Seconds(2));

  // block until ctrl-c
  app.run();
}

You can then run the program with:

./myservice --qi-standalone # for a standalone server
./myservice --qi-url tcp://somemachine:9559 # to connect to another galaxy of sessions

Links

Upstream repository: http://github.com/aldebaran/libqi

Documentation: http://doc.aldebaran.com/libqi/

IRC Channel: #qi on freenode.

Upstream Maintainers:

• Joël Lamotte jlamotte@aldebaran.com
• Jérémy Monnon jmonnon@aldebaran.com
• Matthieu Paindavoine matthieu.paindavoine@softbankrobotics.com
• Vincent Palancher vincent.palancher@external.softbankrobotics.com

See the package.xml for the ROS 2 maintainers.

ROS Distro	Binary Status	Source Status	Github Build
Jazzy
Iron
Humble

Changelog for package naoqi_libqi

3.0.3 (2025-06-19)

• Update c++ to 14 for gtest compatability
• Support for Jazzy
• Update badges
• Contributors: Chris Birmingham, Victor Paléologue

3.0.2 (2023-11-13)

• ROS-compatible automated test
• Contributors: Victor Paléologue

3.0.1 (2023-11-09)

• Rename license file
• Contributors: Victor Paléologue

3.0.0 (2023-11-07)

• Add [iron]{.title-ref} workflow for CI
• Restore GitHub workflows
• Contributors: Victor Paléologue
• Update README
• Avoid boost bind global placeholders Finally, at last.
• Use .value() when getting a service
• Fix usage of [boost::asio]{.title-ref} for 1.74
• Use explicit placeholders
• Port to ROS 2 restarted from version qi-framework-v1.8.7
• Contributors: Victor Paléologue