Skip to content

Introduce relative topic names for better multi-robot support #3420

@C88-YQ

Description

@C88-YQ

Desired behavior

When using the same SDF to spawn multiple robot instances, topics should be automatically isolated to avoid conflicts.

Currently, if topics are explicitly defined (e.g., cmd_vel), all robots share the same topic, causing interference.

Alternatives considered

Some plugins (e.g., AckermannSteering) provide a subtopic that prefixes topics with the model name.

However, this approach is not consistent across plugins and introduces extra parameters.

Implementation suggestion

Introduce support for relative topic names:

  • Topics starting with / → treated as absolute
  • Otherwise → treated as relative and automatically prefixed with the model name

This provides a unified behavior without introducing additional parameters.

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    enhancementNew feature or request

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    Status

    Inbox

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions