# Microduck ROS 2 integration brings MuJoCo simulation to Pollen Robotics biped

> **Key takeaway:** A new open-source integration allows Microduck biped policies to run within MuJoCo while utilizing standard ROS 2 interfaces for simulation and control.

**Published:** 2026-11-03T17:50:53+00:00 
**Source:** ROS Robot Operating System News 
**Category:** robotics-science 
**Canonical URL:** https://fosswire.org/news/microduck-ros-2-integration-brings-mujoco-simulation-to-poll.html 

## Summary
A new open-source project has been released to integrate the Microduck biped robot into the ROS 2 ecosystem. This integration enables the execution of existing Microduck policies within the MuJoCo physics engine, providing a high-fidelity simulation environment for the Pollen Robotics hardware.

The software exposes the simulated robot through standard ROS 2 interfaces, including velocity commands, joint states, and IMU data. By bridging MuJoCo with ROS 2, developers can now use familiar robotics tools and workflows to test locomotion, perception, and higher-level autonomy on a simulated bipedal platform.

## Technical implementation and ROS 2 features
- **Simulation Fidelity:** The integration utilizes the BAM XL330 actuator model within MuJoCo and validates observations against existing policies with a strict error tolerance of 1e-6.
- **Standardized Interfaces:** The system provides several ROS 2 topics and transforms, including /cmd_vel for velocity control, joint states, IMU data, TF/URDF support, and a head camera feed compatible with RViz visualization.
- **Skill and Manifest Management:** Pre-defined robot skills such as kicks, roulade, and sit/stand are exposed as ROS 2 services, adhering to the robot's original manifest and robotd behavior.
- **Policy Compatibility:** The framework is designed to run existing microduck-policies without requiring modifications to the original policy codebases.

## Why it matters
This development provides a bridge for researchers to apply ROS 2 navigation and perception stacks, such as Nav2, to legged robotics in a simulated environment. It lowers the barrier for testing complex locomotion and LLM-based voice control before deploying to physical Pollen Robotics hardware.