Libraries
Popular FTC libraries, frameworks, and tools used by competitive teams.
FTC Libraries
While the FTC SDK provides everything needed to program a robot, many teams use additional libraries and tools to simplify development, improve code organization, and build more advanced autonomous routines. Below are some of the most popular options in the FTC community.
Motion Planning
Road Runner
Website: https://rr.brott.dev/docs/
Road Runner is one of the most widely used autonomous libraries in FTC. It provides trajectory generation, localization, motion profiling, and trajectory following, allowing robots to drive smooth, accurate paths across the field.
Road Runner is ideal for teams that want highly accurate autonomous routines and are willing to spend time tuning their robot.
Pedro Pathing
Website: https://pedropathing.com/
Pedro Pathing is a modern path-following library that has become increasingly popular in recent seasons. It uses Bézier curves to create smooth paths while keeping setup simple and beginner-friendly.
Many teams choose Pedro Pathing because it requires less tuning than traditional trajectory libraries while still providing excellent autonomous performance.
MeepMeep
Website: https://github.com/noahbres/MeepMeep
MeepMeep is a desktop simulator for visualizing Road Runner trajectories before running them on a physical robot. It allows teams to design and test autonomous paths quickly without deploying code.
Control Flow
FTCLib
Website: https://github.com/FTCLib/FTCLib
FTCLib is the most popular robotics framework for FTC outside of the SDK itself. It includes a command-based architecture inspired by WPILib, along with PID controllers, geometry classes, kinematics, odometry utilities, and many helper classes.
FTCLib is an excellent choice for teams looking to build organized and scalable codebases.
StateFactory
Website: https://github.com/StateFactory/statefactory
StateFactory is a lightweight command and state machine framework designed specifically for FTC. It helps organize robot actions into reusable commands and states while keeping code simple and readable.
Dashboards
FTC Dashboard
Website: https://github.com/acmerobotics/ftc-dashboard
FTC Dashboard is one of the most useful development tools available. It provides live telemetry, graphing, variable tuning, camera streaming, and field visualization, making debugging significantly easier.
Nearly every advanced FTC team uses FTC Dashboard.
Panels
Website: https://github.com/ftcontrol/panels
Panels is a modern telemetry dashboard featuring live visualization, replay capabilities, robot configuration tools, and additional debugging features.
Vision Libraries
VisionPortal
Website: https://ftc-docs.firstinspires.org/
VisionPortal is built directly into the FTC SDK and provides support for AprilTags, TensorFlow Object Detection, and USB webcams.
EasyOpenCV
Website: https://github.com/OpenFTC/EasyOpenCV
EasyOpenCV simplifies using OpenCV within FTC robots. It provides an easy-to-use framework for building custom image processing pipelines.
Performance & Utilities
PhotonFTC
Website: https://github.com/Eeshwar-Krishnan/PhotonFTC
PhotonFTC improves SDK performance by reducing loop overhead and optimizing robot execution speed. Teams looking to maximize control loop frequency may find it useful.
Was this resource helpful?