# rafcon

**Repository Path**: mirrors_DLR-RM/rafcon

## Basic Information

- **Project Name**: rafcon
- **Description**: RAFCON (RMC advanced flow control) uses hierarchical state machines, featuring concurrent state execution, to represent robot programs. It ships with a graphical user interface supporting the creation of state machines and contains IDE like debugging mechanisms. Alternatively, state machines can programmatically be generated using RAFCON's API.
- **Primary Language**: Unknown
- **License**: EPL-1.0
- **Default Branch**: master
- **Homepage**: None
- **GVP Project**: No

## Statistics

- **Stars**: 0
- **Forks**: 0
- **Created**: 2023-02-25
- **Last Updated**: 2026-07-26

## Categories & Tags

**Categories**: Uncategorized

**Tags**: None

## README

# RAFCON

<p align="left">
     <img src="documents/assets/Screenshot_Drill_Skill_Scaled.png"
          alt="Screenshot showing RAFCON with a big state machine">
</p>

- **Documentation:** Hosted on [Read the Docs](https://rafcon.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)
- **Homepage:** [DLR-RM.github.io/RAFCON/](https://dlr-rm.github.io/RAFCON/)
- **License:** [EPL](https://github.com/DLR-RM/RAFCON/blob/master/LICENSE.md)
- **Cheatsheet:** [Download Cheatsheet](doc/_static/rafcon_cheatsheet.pdf)
- **Usage with ROS2:** [RAFCON with ROS2 Tutorial](https://rafcon.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorials.html#using-ros2-with-rafcon)

## Develop your robotic tasks using an intuitive graphical user interface

RAFCON uses hierarchical state machines, featuring concurrent state execution, to represent robot programs.
It ships with a graphical user interface supporting the creation of state machines and contains IDE-like debugging mechanisms.
Alternatively, state machines can be programmatically generated using RAFCON's API.

**Universal application**

> RAFCON is written in Python, can be extended with plugins and is hard- and middleware-independent.

**Visual programming**

> The sophisticated graphical editor can be used for the creation, execution, and debugging of state machines.

**Collaborative working**

> Share and reuse your state machines in the form of libraries, stored as JSON strings in text files.

<p align="left">
     <img src="documents/assets/RAFCON-sm-creation-preview.gif"
          alt="Example on how to create a simple state machine"
          width="570">
</p>

## Installation preparations

Before installing RAFCON, Python >=3.9, pip, and setuptools are required on your system.
Most of the other dependencies are automatically resolved by pip/setuptools, but not all of them.
Those need to be installed manually, too.

### General requirements

- Python >=3.9
- pip (recent version required)
- pdm (recent version required)

### Installation requirements

*Tested under Ubuntu 24.04*

```bash
sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-dev python3-pip python3-setuptools
sudo apt install libcairo2-dev pkg-config libgirepository1.0-dev
sudo apt install gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-gtksource-3.0
```

## Installing RAFCON

*Tested under Ubuntu 24.04*

It is recommended to install RAFCON inside a virtual environment.
Once created, make sure setuptools is installed:

```bash
pip install "setuptools<81"
```

Then, simply install RAFCON with:

```bash
pip install rafcon --user
```

The `--user` flag is optional.
If not set, RAFCON is installed globally (in this case you normally need root privileges).

If you run into any problems installing and starting RAFCON, **please let us know in the issues!**

Of course, you can also directly use the RAFCON sources from GitHub.

```bash
cd /install/directory
git clone https://github.com/DLR-RM/RAFCON.git rafcon
```

## Start RAFCON

No matter which installation option you choose, RAFCON can be started from any location (make sure `/usr/local/bin` or `~/.local/bin` is in your `PATH` environment variable):

```bash
rafcon
```

On a multi-Python setup, start RAFCON using:

```bash
python<your-version> -m rafcon
```

## Uninstallation

If you want to uninstall RAFCON, all you need to do is call

```bash
pip uninstall rafcon
```

## Funding

This project has received public funding from the **European Union** NextGenerationEU within the Important Project of Common European Interest – Cloud Infrastructures and Services (IPCEI-CIS) under grant agreement 13IPC034 (*[ROX](https://www.project-rox.ai/en/)* project).

<p align="center">
  <img alt="Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWE)-EU and secunet funding logo" src="documents/assets/bmwe_logo.png" width="400"/>
</p>