Robot

Robot#

The Robot class extends Articulation to support advanced robotics features such as kinematic solvers (IK/FK), motion planners, and part-based control (e.g., controlling “arm” and “gripper” separately).

Configuration#

Robots are configured using RobotCfg.

Parameter

Type

Default

Description

control_parts

Dict[str, List[str]]

None

Defines groups of joints (e.g., {"arm": ["joint1", ...], "hand": ["finger1", ...]}).

solver_cfg

SolverCfg

None

Configuration for kinematic solvers (IK/FK).

urdf_cfg

URDFCfg

None

Advanced configuration for assembling a robot from multiple URDF components.

Setup & Initialization#

A Robot must be spawned within a SimulationManager.

import torch
from embodichain.lab.sim import SimulationManager, SimulationManagerCfg
from embodichain.lab.sim.objects import Robot, RobotCfg
from embodichain.lab.sim.solvers import SolverCfg

# 1. Initialize Simulation Environment
# Note: Use 'sim_device' to specify device (e.g., "cuda:0" or "cpu")
device = "cuda" if torch.cuda.is_available() else "cpu"
sim_cfg = SimulationManagerCfg(sim_device=device, physics_dt=0.01)
sim = SimulationManager(sim_config=sim_cfg)

# 2. Configure Robot
robot_cfg = RobotCfg(
    fpath="assets/robots/franka/franka.urdf",
    control_parts={
        "arm": ["panda_joint[1-7]"],
        "gripper": ["panda_finger_joint[1-2]"]
    },
    solver_cfg=SolverCfg() 
)

# 3. Spawn Robot
# Note: The method is 'add_robot', and it takes 'cfg' as argument
robot: Robot = sim.add_robot(cfg=robot_cfg)

# 4. Reset Simulation
# This performs a global reset of the simulation state
sim.reset_objects_state()

Robot Class#

Control Parts#

A unique feature of the Robot class is Control Parts. Instead of controlling the entire DoF vector at once, you can target specific body parts by name.

# Get joint IDs for a specific part
arm_ids = robot.get_joint_ids(name="arm")

# Control only the arm
# Note: Ensure 'sim.update()' is called in your loop to apply these actions
target_qpos = torch.zeros((robot.num_instances, len(arm_ids)), device=device)
robot.set_qpos(target_qpos, name="arm", target=True)

Kinematics (Solvers)#

The robot class integrates solvers to perform differentiable Forward Kinematics (FK) and Inverse Kinematics (IK).

Forward Kinematics (FK)#

Compute the pose of a link (e.g., end-effector) given joint positions.

# Compute FK for a specific part (uses the part's configured solver)
current_qpos = robot.get_qpos()
ee_pose = robot.compute_fk(qpos=current_qpos, name="arm")
print(f"EE Pose: {ee_pose}")

Inverse Kinematics (IK)#

Compute the required joint positions to reach a target pose.

# Compute IK
# pose: Target pose (N, 7) or (N, 4, 4)
target_pose = ee_pose.clone() # Example target
target_pose[:, 2] += 0.1      # Move up 10cm

success, solved_qpos = robot.compute_ik(
    pose=target_pose,
    name="arm",
    joint_seed=current_qpos
)

Proprioception#

Get standard proprioceptive observation data for learning agents.

# Returns a dict containing 'qpos', 'qvel', and 'qf'
obs = robot.get_proprioception()

Advanced API#

The Robot class overrides standard Articulation methods to support the name argument for part-specific operations.

Method

Description

set_qpos(..., name="part")

Set joint positions for a specific part.

set_qvel(..., name="part")

Set joint velocities for a specific part.

set_qf(..., name="part")

Set joint efforts for a specific part.

get_qpos(name="part")

Get joint positions of a specific part.

get_qvel(name="part")

Get joint velocities of a specific part.

For more API details, refer to the Robot documentation.

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