This is an implementation of a Model Predictive Path Integral (MPPI) controller which uses IsaacGym as a dynamic model for the rollouts. We provide several examples of what tasks you can solve with it:
You can extend the repository with your robots and tasks since it is designed to be modular and reusable.
If you found this repository useful, please consider citing the associated paper below:
- Sampling-based Model Predictive Control Leveraging Parallelizable Physics Simulations. Corrado Pezzato*, Chadi Salmi*, Max Spahn*, Elia Trevisan*, Javier Alonso Mora, and Carlos Hernandez Corbato. arXiv:2307.09105. Under review at IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2023.
NOTE: To use the GPU pipeline (default) you need an NVIDIA graphics card. If you do not have one, you can use the CPU pipeline, with fewer samples.
This project requires the source code of IsaacGym inside the folder
thirdparty. Download it from https://developer.nvidia.com/isaac-gym, extract it, and place
it in mppi-isaac/thirdparty. Then you can proceed with the installation described below.
You can install the necessary dependencies using poetry virtual environment. After installing poetry, move into mppi-isaac and run
poetry install --with devBear in mind that the installation might take several minutes the first time. But it's worth it.
Access the virtual environment using
poetry shellIf you are using Pycharm (professional), first add a new Python interpreter via 'Add New Interpreter', 'Add local interpreter" and create a virtual environment within the mppi-isaac folder called 'venv'. Then install the necessary dependencies using poetry in the virtual environment.
poetry install --with devTest that everything is properly set up, use pytest
cd examples
poetry run pytestAlternatively, you can also install at the system level using pip, even though we advise using the virtual environment:
pip install .If you have an Nvidia card and after running the simulation you get a black screen, you might need to force the use of the GPU card through export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/nvidia_icd.json. Run this command from the same folder as the script to be launched for every terminal
Access the virtual environment if installed with poetry (with poetry shell). You can run two types of examples, either the ones using IsaacGym or the ones using Pybullet. In the examples folder, you find all the scripts. The ones related to IsaacGym contain either "server" or "client" in the name.
To run the examples with IsaacGym (for example for non-prehensile pushing and whole-body control), you need two terminals because it is required to run a "server" and a "client" script. In the first one run the server:
python3 heijn_push_server.pyIn the second one the client:
python3 heijn_push_client.pySimply run one of the example scripts which use Pybullet, for instance for the panda robot:
python3 panda_robot_with_obstacles.py