RC-Sim2Real

Robot Control: Simulation to Reality Transfer using Isaac Lab

A robotics simulation and training framework built on NVIDIA Isaac Lab for developing and training custom robot controllers with sim-to-real transfer capabilities.

🎯 Project Overview

This project focuses on:

• Developing custom robot configurations for simulation
• Training robust control policies in Isaac Sim
• Transferring learned behaviors from simulation to real hardware
• Building reusable components for robot control research

🏗️ Project Structure

RC-Sim2Real/
├── isaac_lab/           # Isaac Lab fork with custom robots (separate git repo)
│   └── source/
│       └── isaaclab_assets/
│           └── robots/  # Custom robot configurations
├── env_isaaclab/       # Python virtual environment (gitignored)
├── docs/               # Project documentation
├── scripts/            # Helper scripts and utilities
└── README.md          # This file

🚀 Setup

Prerequisites

• Ubuntu 24.04+ (GLIBC 2.35+)
• NVIDIA GPU with CUDA 12.8 support
• Python 3.11+
• UV or pip for package management

Installation

1. Clone this repository:

   cd /home/maxboels/projects
   # You're already here!

2. Activate the virtual environment:

   source env_isaaclab/bin/activate

3. Isaac Lab is already installed at isaac_lab/

   • This is a fork of isaac-sim/IsaacLab
   • Your fork: maxboels/IsaacLab

Verify Installation

cd isaac_lab
source ../env_isaaclab/bin/activate

# Test Isaac Sim
python -c "from isaacsim import SimulationApp; app = SimulationApp({'headless': True}); app.close()"

# Run Isaac Lab example
./isaaclab.sh -p source/standalone/tutorials/00_sim/create_empty.py

🤖 Developing Custom Robots

Adding a New Robot

1. Navigate to the robots directory:

   cd isaac_lab/source/isaaclab_assets/isaaclab_assets/robots/

2. Create a new Python file for your robot configuration (e.g., my_robot.py)

3. Define the robot using Isaac Lab's articulation configuration system

4. Register the robot in __init__.py

5. Test your robot in simulation

Example Robot Structure

See existing robots in isaac_lab/source/isaaclab_assets/isaaclab_assets/robots/ for reference:

• franka.py - Franka Emika Panda arm
• unitree.py - Unitree quadrupeds
• quadcopter.py - Aerial vehicles

🎓 Training Workflows

RL Training

Training scripts use the integrated RL frameworks:

• rl_games - High-performance PPO implementation
• rsl_rl - ETH Zurich's RL library
• stable-baselines3 - Popular RL algorithms
• skrl - PyTorch RL library

Sim-to-Real Transfer

Best practices for sim-to-real transfer:

1. Domain randomization in simulation
2. Realistic physics parameters
3. Sensor noise modeling
4. Gradual real-world deployment

📚 Documentation

• Isaac Lab Setup Guide - Detailed installation steps
• Isaac Lab Official Docs
• Isaac Sim Documentation

🛠️ Useful Commands

# Activate environment
source env_isaaclab/bin/activate

# Run Isaac Lab with specific python script
cd isaac_lab
./isaaclab.sh -p path/to/script.py

# Update Isaac Lab extensions
./isaaclab.sh --install

# Format code
./isaaclab.sh --format

# Run tests
./isaaclab.sh --test

📦 Installed Versions

• Isaac Sim: 5.0.0
• Isaac Lab: 0.47.1
• PyTorch: 2.7.0+cu128
• Python: 3.11.14
• Warp: 1.9.1

🔧 Development Workflow

Working on Custom Robots

cd isaac_lab
git checkout -b feature/my-robot-name

# Make changes to source/isaaclab_assets/isaaclab_assets/robots/
# ... develop and test ...

git add .
git commit -m "Add my robot configuration"
git push origin feature/my-robot-name

Updating from Isaac Lab Upstream (Optional)

If you want to pull updates from NVIDIA's Isaac Lab:

cd isaac_lab
git fetch upstream
git merge upstream/main
git push origin main

🎯 Current Focus

• Develop custom robot configurations
• Create training environments
• Implement baseline RL policies
• Test sim-to-real transfer
• Document deployment procedures

📝 Notes

• The isaac_lab/ directory is managed as a separate git repository (your fork)
• The env_isaaclab/ virtual environment is specific to this project setup
• Keep documentation updated in the docs/ folder
• Use scripts/ for helper utilities and automation

🤝 Contributing

This is a personal research project. For contributing to Isaac Lab itself, see the official repository.

📄 License

• Isaac Lab: See isaac_lab/LICENSE
• Custom components: [Your chosen license]

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Author: maxboels
Last Updated: October 20, 2025