Ros2-MCP-Web-Portal

Overview

The ROS MCP Server with Web Portal is designed to support robots in performing complex tasks and adapting effectively to various environments by providing a set of functions that transform natural language commands, entered by a user through an LLM, into ROS commands for robot control. Furthermore, by utilizing rosbridge, it is configured to operate with both ROS and ROS2 systems, and its WebSocket-based communication enables broad applicability across diverse platforms. not only that using this MCP Server I have created a web portal that makes it super easy to go through hundreds of topics and services without typing a single command and visualzie it for easy intuition, see live camera stream wth description from LLM and ability to control robots with Web-UI.

Demo

<img src="img/portal.gif" width="1500"/>

Supported Environment

• Quadruped Simulation (successful testing on Isaac-sim+IsaacLab)
• Real Quadruped (under development)
• Humanoid Simulation + Real (In future)

1. MCP-Server Installation

uv Installation

• To install uv, you can use the following command:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

or

pip install uv

• Create virtual environment and activate it (Optional)

uv venv
source .venv/bin/activate

MCP Server Configuration

Option A. Install Cursor

In cursor open settings and go to Tools & Integrations and then click Add Custom MCP. Then paste the code in section 2.1

Option B:

Install Claude Desktop (For Linux installation follow claude-desktop-debian). Run claude desktop and go to developer settings and click Add MCP Server. Then paste the code given in section 2.1

MCP Config File

Paste the code in mcp.json file

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ros-mcp-server": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory",
        "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/Go2_Isaac_ros2/ros-mcp-server",,
        "run",
        "server.py"
      ]
    }
  }
}

1.1 MCP Functions

You can find the list of functions in the MCPFUNCTIONS.md.

1.2 Launch Rosbridge Server

1. Set IP and Port to connect rosbridge.

• Open server.py and change your LOCAL_IP, ROSBRIDGE_IP and ROSBRIDGE_PORT. (ROSBRIDGE_PORT's default value is 9090)

Run rosbridge server.

ROS 1

roslaunch rosbridge_server rosbridge_websocket.launch   

ROS 2

ros2 launch rosbridge_server rosbridge_websocket_launch.xml   #if you dont have it install it with sudo apt command in linux

Run main.py as per README.MD

Before running, make sure num_envs in sim.yaml has same value as NUM_ENVS in server.py

Type your instructions in chat

2 Launch Web Portal

To run web portal only prerequisite is step 3 (launch robsridge server). Other steps can be ignored

2.1 Activate the evironment

Assuming that you are running it with Isaac-simulation(support for real robot will be added later), First of all activate the same environment being used for running main.py program (isaaclab_env) as per README.MD

Note: If you want to create a new seperate environment for web portal then you need to install torch and numpy as well otherwise make sure you dont update/change them in existing environment or it will cause problems.

conda activate env_isaaclab #or activate your custom env
cd ~/Go2_Isaac_ros2/ros-mcp-server
pip install -r requirements_web_mcp.txt
python web_portal.py

2.2 Changing Portal Settings

• You can choose which services to run in portal by setting parameters to True/False in config.py
• Button location might be different depending on screen size. You can adjust it in web_portal.py from line 90 onwards
• To run the LLM description dont forget to add your API key in config.py or use Ollama for local hosting. To change prompt go to llm_describer.py
• To add a new service make a new code such as lidar.py and initialize it in data_stream.py. From here all data needed for web_portal is acquired. All data is is gathered in data_stream class whose object is then called by web_portal.
• By default an image is sent to LLM every 5 seconds for description update. You can change it in data_stream.py
• If you want to use camera and controller for a different robot make sure you change the name of topics in config.py
• To share Web-portal with many users across network, Checkout Gradio-Mcp-Server

3. Acknowledgement

MCP Control is based on ros-mcp-server (Note: my implementation has deviated quite a bit now)

LLM description inspiration from vlm-describer

7. Citation

@MISC{Suleman2025,
  author = "Muhammad Suleman",
  title = "Ros2-MCP-Web-Portal",
  year = "2025",
  url = "https://github.com/sallu-786/Ros2-MCP-Web-Portal",
  note = "Version 1.0.0"
}

8. Contact

sulemanmuhammad08@gmail.com