Announcements

• Drake now supports Ubuntu 26.04 (“Resolute”).
  • At the moment, for x86-64, only the -v3 architecture variant is supported (amd64v3). The older -v1 architecture (amd64) is a work in progress; follow #24505 for updates.
• Drake now supports the ARM64 architecture on Ubuntu (for all installation methods) and Amazon Linux 2023 (when installing via pip).
• AutoDiff performance is 30-100% faster (#24459).
• Drake deprecation warnings can now be easily silenced (#24406).
• For binary releases, install_prereqs should no longer be run under sudo (#24458).

Previously announced

• Docker images are deprecated and will no longer be published after 2026-06-01 (#24048).
• Drake has switched to a new AutoDiff implementation (#23870).
  • Users can still opt-out back to the old implementation, via:
    • CMake builds: -DDRAKE_USE_EIGEN_LEGACY_AUTODIFF=ON.
    • Bazel builds: --@drake//tools/flags:use_eigen_legacy_autodiff=True.
  • On 2026-07-01 the old implementation will be removed.
• The drake-apt site at https://drake-apt.csail.mit.edu is deprecated (#24282).
  • The site will continue to be updated with stable releases for Ubuntu 24.04 (“Noble”) until March 2028, but will not add support for newer versions of Ubuntu.
  • Instead of using the drake-apt site, users should switch to directly installing the *.deb package attached to Drake releases. See drake_cmake_installed_apt for an example.

Breaking changes since v1.52.1

• None

Refer to our Drake Stability Guidelines for our policy on API changes.

Changes since v1.52.1

Dynamical Systems

• None

Mathematical Program

Fixes

• TOPPRA gracefully handles failure due to small timestep (#24532)

Multibody Dynamics and Geometry

New features

• CENIC accepts a bare plant (no diagram) (#24441)
• CENIC handles 0-size problems (#24524, #24536)
• Make Mesh/Convex cheap to copy (#24519)

Planning

Fixes

• IrisNp2 ray sampler must walk to fewer particles than the total number of particles (#24272)
• IrisNp2 warns if the seed point is too close to violating constraints (#24301)

Tutorials and examples

• None

Miscellaneous features and fixes

• Speed up AutoDiff matrix multiplies (#24459)

pydrake bindings

• pydrake.math.BsplineBasis.__eq__ newly bound (#24429)
• pydrake.math.BsplineBasis.__ne__ newly bound (#24429)
• pydrake.math.RollPitchYaw.IsNearlyEqualTo newly bound (#24429)
• pydrake.math.RotationMatrix.IsExactlyEqualTo newly bound (#24429)
• pydrake.math.RotationMatrix.IsNearlyEqualTo newly bound (#24429)
• pydrake.symbolic.Expression supports pickling (#23903)
• pydrake.symbolic.Formula supports pickling (#23903)
• pydrake.symbolic.Variables supports pickling (#23903)

Build system

• Add DRAKE_DEPRECATION_RUNTIME_SEVERITY environment variable to change the severity of runtime deprecation warnings (#24406)
• Add preprocessor definition DRAKE_DEPRECATION_IS_SILENT to disable compile-time deprecation warnings (#24406)
• CMake guards against lld multi-threading (#24457)
• Remove unused / unsupported install_prereqs flags (#24388)
• For binary releases, install_prereqs should no longer be run under sudo (#24458)

Build dependencies

• Add dependency on lld (#24442)
• Update crate_universe to latest (#24510)
• Update python venv to latest (#24527)
• Update dependency apple_support to 2.5.4 (#24483)
• Update dependency bazel to 9.1.0 (#24437)
• Update dependency bazel_features to 1.46.0 (#24485)
• Update dependency buildifier_prebuilt to 8.5.1.2 (#24484)
• Update dependency curl_internal to 8.20.0 (#24511)
• Update dependency dm_control_internal to 1.0.40 (#24517)
• Update dependency drake_models to latest commit (#24517)
• Update dependency glib to 2.82.2.bcr.8 (#24491)
• Update dependency highway_internal to latest release 1.4.0 (#24515)
• Update dependency libpng_internal to 1.6.58 (#24517)
• Update dependency mujoco_menagerie_internal to latest commit (#24517)
• Update dependency platforms to 1.1.0 (#24488)
• Update dependency ruff_prebuilt to 0.15.12.1 (#24479)
• Update dependency rules_cc to 0.2.18 (#24470)
• Update dependency rules_jvm_external to 7.0 (#24453)
• Update dependency rules_python to 2.0.0 (#24480)
• Update dependency rules_rust to 0.70.0 (#24452)
• Update dependency rules_shell to 0.8.0 (#24486)
• Update dependency stable_baselines3_internal to latest release 2.8.0 (#24516)
• Update dependency uwebsockets_internal to 20.77.0 (#24517)

Newly-deprecated APIs

• None

Removal of deprecated items

• None

Notes

This release provides pre-compiled binaries. See Installation for instructions on how to use them.

Drake binary releases incorporate a pre-compiled version of SNOPT as part of the Mathematical Program toolbox. Thanks to Philip E. Gill and Elizabeth Wong for their kind support.