Nav2 for Autonomous Mobile Robots: An Implementation Oriented Survey of Architecture, Components, and Practical Limitations

Abstract

The Robot Operating System 2 (ROS 2) Navigation Stack (Nav2) has become the dominant framework for autonomous mobile robot navigation, yet practitioners encounter significant difficulty translating its architectural documentation into reliable real-world deployments. This paper presents a practitioner-oriented survey of Nav2’s architecture, core components, and known implementation challenges, drawing on representative studies published between 2020 and 2025. Rather than claiming exhaustive literature coverage, this survey consolidates architectural knowledge by spanning Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) and localization, path planning, costmap design and behavior trees, and documents recurring implementation experiences reported across diverse indoor robotic platforms. Key deployment challenges identified include odometry drift under sensor degradation, parameter tuning sensitivity, dynamic obstacle handling limitations, and real-time processing latency in distributed ROS 2 setups. The findings are intended to serve as a practical reference for engineers and researchers initiating Nav2-based indoor navigation projects, providing both technical grounding and awareness of where current implementations fall short.