SAN FRANCISCO AND PASADENA, CA – 26/10/2025 – (SeaPRwire) – As the global robotics industry races toward mass commercialization, developers and enterprises are facing a crucial challenge: how to balance autonomy, flexibility, and safety in real-world environments. Robots must be intelligent enough to adapt dynamically to their surroundings, yet secure enough to guarantee safety across unpredictable conditions. Bridging this gap has become one of the defining technical and ethical imperatives of the decade.
In a significant move aimed at addressing this challenge, Open Navigation LLC, the organization behind the industry-leading open-source Nav2 navigation platform, has announced a strategic partnership with 3Laws, the Pasadena-based pioneer of dynamic safety guardrails for autonomous and human-operated systems. Together, the two companies are uniting open-source innovation and AI-based safety control into a single ecosystem—designed to accelerate robotics development and raise safety standards for autonomous machines operating in diverse, real-world environments.
At the core of this collaboration lies a shared belief: that open, transparent, and safety-first technologies can democratize robotics and make autonomy accessible to all. The partnership introduces a deeper level of integration between Nav2, trusted by more than 300 companies worldwide, and 3Laws’ universal safety layer, a technology that continuously monitors robot behavior in real time and reacts dynamically to avoid hazards—without relying on legacy emergency-stop triggers.
A Leap Forward in the Safety and Reliability of Autonomous Navigation
The alliance between Open Navigation and 3Laws marks a pivotal step in the evolution of autonomous navigation systems. The integration of 3Laws’ Supervisor ROS with Nav2 allows developers to seamlessly embed dynamic safety guardrails into their robotic systems. This empowers teams to deploy mobile robots with greater confidence, even in highly complex and unstructured environments such as warehouses, hospitals, airports, and industrial facilities.
“The robotics community has long been searching for a flexible, open-source foundation that combines commercial-grade performance with real-world safety assurances,” said Steve Macenski, CEO of Open Navigation LLC. “Our partnership with 3Laws provides exactly that—developers now have access to an intelligent safety layer that can be directly applied to any Nav2-powered robot. This opens the door for the kind of scalable, reliable deployments that will define the next generation of autonomous systems.”
Through this partnership, developers can now take advantage of 3Laws Supervisor ROS, which is being offered as a free community tier. The toolset enables robotics teams to build and test autonomy stacks with real-time safety constraints built in, shortening the path from prototype to production. This community edition retains many of the capabilities found in 3Laws’ enterprise product, Supervisor PRO, which supports more complex systems such as robotic arms, mobile manipulators, and multi-sensor platforms.
Empowering the ROS Ecosystem
The open-source Robot Operating System (ROS) community has long been a driving force in advancing robotics research and innovation. By integrating 3Laws’ safety framework with Nav2, Open Navigation is reinforcing its mission to make high-performance, professional-grade robotics tools freely accessible to developers and researchers worldwide.
According to Andrew Singletary, CEO of 3Laws, the partnership is not only about technology but also about accessibility. “The Nav2 framework has become the industry’s de facto open-source navigation standard,” Singletary said. “By making our safety layer compatible and freely available to the ROS community, we’re helping developers build robots that can operate confidently in dynamic, unpredictable environments—without compromising safety or performance. Together, we’re making safety innovation as open as autonomy innovation.”
The ROS community’s enthusiasm for safety-oriented development continues to grow as robotics moves from lab environments into live industrial and public applications. The ability to test and deploy AI-driven guardrails directly within Nav2 is expected to dramatically accelerate how developers approach autonomous navigation, reducing risk while maintaining adaptability and speed.
From Research to Real-World Impact
Both companies will demonstrate their collaboration at ROSCon 2025, taking place in Singapore. The event, widely regarded as one of the world’s leading gatherings for robotics researchers and engineers, will feature a joint presentation on how the combination of Nav2 and 3Laws’ technologies is transforming safety assurance for robotics at scale.
During the event, Steve Macenski will present a technical session titled “On Use of Nav2 Route Server” on Tuesday, October 28, at 11:10 a.m. SST, highlighting the latest advancements in adaptive navigation and system reliability. Both Open Navigation and 3Laws will also participate in live discussions and demonstrations showcasing how dynamic safety guardrails can enhance robot autonomy in real-world deployments.
This integration is already being hailed by early users as a turning point for the robotics industry. By unifying the flexibility of open-source tools with enterprise-grade safety intelligence, the partnership enables companies to deploy autonomous systems with faster iteration cycles, reduced downtime, and improved operational confidence.
A Shared Vision for the Future of Robotics
For both Open Navigation and 3Laws, this partnership represents more than just a technical collaboration—it embodies a shared commitment to shaping a future where robots coexist safely, intelligently, and reliably with humans.
“Reliability, flexibility, and transparency are the pillars of modern robotics,” Macenski explained. “By embedding 3Laws’ safety technology into Nav2, we’re giving developers a way to build trust into their systems from day one. Safety is no longer an afterthought; it’s a foundation.”
3Laws’ technology, originally developed from Caltech’s Control Barrier Function (CBF) research, has already been proven across aerospace and automotive sectors for maintaining operational safety under dynamic conditions. The company’s mission is to extend this proven safety methodology to robotics—creating a universal safety layer that can adapt in real time to environmental complexity, hardware differences, and mission parameters.
Together, the two organizations are bridging the gap between academic research, open-source collaboration, and commercial deployment—laying the groundwork for an era of robotics defined by openness, safety, and scalability.
About Open Navigation LLC
Open Navigation LLC accelerates the commercialization and applied research of robotics by democratizing access to professional-grade navigation technologies. The company’s flagship product, Nav2, is a production-ready open-source navigation framework used by over 300 companies globally to power autonomous mobile robots across industries. Open Navigation supports collaboration across academia and enterprise while providing professional services to help organizations build scalable, reliable systems with ROS 2 and Nav2.
Learn more at www.opennav.org (example).
About 3Laws
3Laws delivers a universal safety layer for autonomous and human-operated systems using Control Barrier Functions (CBFs)—a mathematically proven method that ensures systems stay within safe operating limits without reducing performance. Spun out from Caltech and holding the exclusive license for foundational CBF technology, 3Laws is redefining safety for robotics, aerospace, automotive, and industrial automation. Based in Pasadena, California, 3Laws is committed to building the safety infrastructure that enables smarter, more reliable, and scalable autonomy across industries.
source https://newsroom.seaprwire.com/technologies/open-navigation-and-3laws-partner-to-advance-the-future-of-safe-scalable-robotics-through-integrated-open-source-and-ai-safety-technologies/