So you’ve heard all about the cool open-source robot physics engine MuJoCo, you’ve tried out the sample robot models (e.g. in MuJoCo Menagerie), and now you want to simulate your own robot in MuJoCo- but how to do it? MuJoCo uses the MJCF XML format for its models, and also supports the URDF format. Although some converters from CAD models directly to URDF models exist, so far I’ve found it much easier to just write the MJCF model from scratch yourself. This lets you keep track of all the model parameters consistent since you write it yourself, and it’s not as complicated as you may think. So in this article I’ll explain the easiest method that I know so far to manually convert your robot model in CAD to a simulated version in MuJoCo! And at the end, I’ll also show you how to get the MJCF model to also work in IsaacGym.
This is an essay of the many missteps I took in the Real Robot Challenge, documented here to encourage myself to not repeat the same mistake in the future.
In previous article we went as far as setting up a VPN server on a Windows PC. In this article, I will explain how to connect to it from various clients and some techniques for setup and management. I split this article into two parts because it is long, but if you have not read Part 1, please read it first (especially, please read the notes first).
After much trial and error, I was able to build a VPN server that can connect from an iPhone without having to release ports or change Windows Firewall settings as described in other articles.
I will not discuss the mechanism and features of VPN because I believe that the readers of this article already have a clear purpose of using VPN communication. I think the main purposes of use are as follows.
Due to popular demand (?) at my lab in ETH Zürich, I will describe the tips & tricks for when I set up programming environements on my computer. Feel free to steal the ones you find useful. Suggestions and ideas are always welcome!