# roboticslibrary/rl

The Robotics Library (RL) is a self-contained C++ library for rigid body kinematics and dynamics, motion planning, and control.

Repository: https://github.com/roboticslibrary/rl
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/roboticslibrary-rl
Homepage: https://www.roboticslibrary.org/
Language: C++
License: BSD-2-Clause
License Family: permissive
Topics: robotics, c-plus-plus, kinematics, dynamics, multibody, path-planning, collision-detection, motion-planning, hardware-abstraction, visualization, rigid-body-dynamics
Last push: 2025-04-15T21:15:32+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 30/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 16, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4466, "days_push": 505, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1199, forks 245 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:57.809304+00:00)

## What it is
A self-contained C++ library for rigid body kinematics and dynamics, motion planning, collision detection, and robot control. It includes hardware abstraction, robot drivers, visualization, and demo applications, and is used in research and education.

## Use cases
- compute robot forward and inverse kinematics in C++
- plan collision-free paths for a robot arm
- simulate rigid body dynamics of a multibody system
- detect collisions and measure distances between robot and scene geometry
- interface with real robot hardware like Universal Robots or grippers
- convert between rotation matrices, quaternions, and Euler angles
- build a robot model with kinematics and geometry definitions
- teach robotics kinematics and motion planning in a course

## When to choose
- you need a permissively licensed (BSD-2) C++ robotics library usable in commercial software
- you want kinematics, dynamics, path planning, and collision detection in one self-contained package
- you need hardware abstraction and drivers for industrial robots and sensors
- you work on Linux, macOS, or Windows and want prebuilt packages or installers

## When to avoid
- you prefer a Python-first robotics stack like ROS or PyBullet
- you need a large community ecosystem and frequent plugin development
- your project requires rarely used hardware interfaces omitted from the binary packages
- you want a game-engine-style physics simulator rather than robotics-focused algorithms

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: simulation, graphics, math, middleware, data-visualization
- domain: robotics, simulation, education
- platform: windows, cpp, cross-platform
- tags: kinematics, dynamics, motion-planning, path-planning, collision-detection, rigid-body-dynamics, multibody-systems, hardware-abstraction, robot-drivers, spatial-vector-algebra, real-time-control, bsc-license, cmake, algorithms, automation, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- roboticslibrary/rl (main) score 30

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:57.809304+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:21:06.477459+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/roboticslibrary/rl (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:57.809304+00:00, sha fd5f737ae32b)
  - homepage: https://www.roboticslibrary.org/ (fetched 2026-08-29T12:28:32.276107+00:00, sha 309855b3b1d5)
  - site_page: https://www.roboticslibrary.org/tutorials/install-windows (fetched 2026-08-29T12:28:32.280788+00:00, sha 9343ec83a763)
  - site_page: https://www.roboticslibrary.org/tutorials/install-ubuntu (fetched 2026-08-29T12:28:32.284759+00:00, sha 5c03c91611d4)
  - site_page: https://www.roboticslibrary.org/faq (fetched 2026-08-29T12:28:32.278638+00:00, sha 8d19ca278f8d)
  - site_page: https://www.roboticslibrary.org/download (fetched 2026-08-29T12:28:32.282761+00:00, sha e2a1ed410053)
  - site_page: https://www.roboticslibrary.org/api (fetched 2026-08-29T12:28:32.286679+00:00, sha b04966e5b7d9)
  - site_page: http://doc.roboticslibrary.org/0.7.0/index.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:28:32.289165+00:00, sha f63d78f62b1f)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.