Robotic Control Interface & Manipulation Planning Library

A python library to operate a real or simulated robot, work with robot/world configurations, compute differentiable features, formulate and solve constrained optimization problems (for inverse kinematics, path optimization, and manipulation planning), and interfacing to various physical simulation engines.

These python bindings were developed for easier access to the uderlying C++ code base, esp. for teaching and students. This code base is how we (in the Learning & Intelligent Systems Lab) operate our robots.

• Documentation & Tutorials: https://marctoussaint.github.io/robotic/
• Sources: https://github.com/MarcToussaint/robotic/
• Pypi: https://pypi.org/project/robotic/

Installation via pip (simulation only, no real Franka & realsense support)

• The pip package was compiled for python3.10 .. 3.14, and most of the dependencies statically linked. A few are still loaded dynamically, which requires installing on Ubuntu:

  sudo apt install liblapack3 freeglut3 libglu1-mesa libxrandr2 libfreetype6 fonts-ubuntu python3 python3-pip
  #in latest Ubuntu also:
  cd /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/ && sudo ln -s libglut.so.3.12 libglut.so.3
  

• Pip install:

   pip install robotic numpy
  

• Tests:

  ry-info
  ry-test
  

• Run all tutorial notebooks as a test and showcase:

  pip install jupyter nbconvert matplotlib ipympl
  git clone https://github.com/MarcToussaint/rai-tutorials.git
  cd rai-tutorials
  make run -j1
  make run_demos -j1
  

• For reference and testing, this should work in a clean ubuntu:latest docker (starting with xhost +local:root && docker run -it --env="DISPLAY" --network host ubuntu:latest):

  apt update
  env DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt install --yes liblapack3 freeglut3-dev libglu1-mesa libxrandr2 libfreetype6 fonts-ubuntu python3 python3-venv
  #cd /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/ && ln -s libglut.so.3.12 libglut.so.3 #was necessary in older ubuntus
  python3 -m venv ~/.local/venv
  source ~/.local/venv/bin/activate
  pip install robotic numpy
  ry-info
  ry-test
  

Installation from source (basic local build)

• Clone:

  cd $HOME/git
  git clone --recursive https://github.com/MarcToussaint/robotic.git
  cd robotic
  

• Install dependencies:

  cp rai/_make/install.sh .
  source ./install.sh vars_only #defines the following dependency packages
  sudo apt install --yes ${ubuntu_rai} ${ubuntu_botop} ${ubuntu_python}
  python3 -m pip install numpy pybind11 pybind11-stubgen
  ./install.sh libccd
  ./install.sh fcl
  ./install.sh libann
  ./install.sh opencv
  ./install.sh physx
  

• Compile robotic (also installs locally with pip install -e .):

  make local-install
  

• Test:

  ry-info  #to test the installation
  

Installation from source (with real Franka & realsense support)

Essentially the same as above, but 2 more dependencies and according flags in cmake:

• Additional dependencies:

  ./install.sh librealsense
  ./install.sh libfranka  ## for OLD frankas instead:   ./install.sh -v 0.8.0 libfranka (and you need to patch it...)
  

• Instead of make local-install, we do it explicitly, setting the USE_REALSENSE and USE_LIBRFRANKA flags:

  cp _make/CMakeLists-ubuntu.txt CMakeLists.txt
  export PY_VERSION=`python3 -c "import sys; print(str(sys.version_info[0])+'.'+str(sys.version_info[1]))"`
  cmake . -B build -DPY_VERSION=$PY_VERSION -DUSE_REALSENSE=ON -DUSE_LIBFRANKA=ON
  make -C build _robotic docstrings install
  python3 -m pip install -e .
  

• For using Franka, recall that the user needs to be part of the realtime and dialout unix group:

  sudo usermod -a -G realtime <username>
  sudo usermod -a -G dialout <username>
  

  You need to log out and back in (or even reboot) for this to take effect. Check with groups in a terminal.

• Now follow the Real Robot Operation Tutorial on the tutorials page to test and debug first steps with the real franka. In particular test ry-bot -real -up -home and debug as explained there.

Building the wheels within a manylinux docker

• Build the docker

_make/build-docker.sh

• Compile wheels (this runs local/_make/build-wheels.sh inside the docker -- see inside the Makefile)

make wheels

• Install these wheels locally with pip or push wheels to pypi -- see inside the Makefile

make wheels-install
make wheels-upload