Install lcm with Homebrew, apt, Nix

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• lcm-gen
• lcm-logger
• lcm-logplayer
• lcm-logplayer-gui
• lcm-spy

Project history

The official documentation says LCM was originally developed in 2006 for the MIT DARPA Urban Challenge team. The project authors list Edwin Olson, David Moore, and Albert Huang as original authors, and the 2009 MIT technical report and 2010 IROS paper describe the design as a low-latency, hubless communication library for robotics research.

LCM's early design emphasized UDP multicast, generated type-safe bindings, log files, and tools such as `lcm-logger`, `lcm-logplayer`, and `lcm-spy`. Version 1.0.0 was released on 2013-06-08, and later releases added Python 3 support, CMake, Lua, Go experiments, Windows work, Sphinx documentation, Python wheels, Meson/Bazel work, and maintenance for newer compilers and operating systems.

Adoption history

LCM spread through robotics and autonomous-systems groups because it was lighter than larger middleware stacks and did not require a central daemon or broker. The official docs list users from research and production environments, including universities, automakers, defense companies, robotics companies, Google, MIT, KAIST, University of Michigan, Volvo Car Group, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

Package adoption in Homebrew, Debian/Ubuntu, and Nix reflects its use by developers who need reproducible CLI tools and libraries for logging and replaying robotic messages alongside C, C++, Java, Lua, MATLAB, and Python bindings.

How it is used

Typical usage defines message types in `.lcm` files, generates bindings with `lcm-gen`, publishes and subscribes to channels from application code, records traffic with `lcm-logger`, replays logs with `lcm-logplayer`, and inspects live traffic with `lcm-spy`.

Why package nerds care

LCM matters to package nerds because it is infrastructure glue for robotics: libraries, code generators, command-line tools, Java artifacts, Python modules, and documentation all have to line up across languages and platforms.

It is also a useful contrast with ROS-style middleware. LCM's no-daemon, UDP-multicast, few-dependency design makes it attractive in package managers where small dependency closure and easy installation matter.

Timeline

• 2006: Originally developed for the MIT DARPA Urban Challenge team.
• 2009: MIT CSAIL technical report published an expanded LCM description.
• 2010: IROS paper described LCM for low-latency message passing and marshalling.
• 2013-06-08: Version 1.0.0 released.
• 2014-11-18: Version 1.2.0 marked migration of the official site to GitHub.
• 2018-08-30: Version 1.4.0 switched the build system to CMake.
• 2023-04-19: Version 1.5.0 moved documentation to Sphinx at `lcm-proj.github.io/lcm/`.
• 2025-10-23: Version 1.5.2 added stable source archive attachments and Windows-related tool support.

Related projects

• Related projects include ROS, robotics log and replay tools, UDP multicast infrastructure, DARPA Urban Challenge software stacks, CMake, Sphinx, Java and Python language bindings, and community forks adding languages such as Rust and Vala.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/lcm-proj/lcm/releases?per_page=20
• https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/46708/MIT-CSAIL-TR-2009-041.pdf
• https://github.com/lcm-proj/lcm
• https://lcm-proj.github.io/lcm
• https://people.csail.mit.edu/albert/pubs/2010-huang-olson-moore-lcm-iros.pdf
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lcm-proj/lcm/master/AUTHORS
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lcm-proj/lcm/master/NEWS.md
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lcm-proj/lcm/master/README.md