Real Robot Interface

The simulation API is designed with the aim of making it easy to transition to the interface of the real robots. Below, we describe two different ways of switching between simulated and real robot:

1. Switching between SimFinger and RealFinger

2. Using the real-robot interface and replacing the hardware back end with the simulation.

Note also, that the interface of SimFinger is designed to be as similar as possible to the real-robot front end, so even switching between the two should be relatively easy.

RealRobot Wrapper

The RealFinger class provides a wrapper around the real-robot interface which can be used as a drop-in replacement for SimFinger.

Simple example, sending control commands to the TriFinger:

from trifinger_simulation import sim_finger, real_finger

if use_real == True:
    robot = real_finger.RealFinger(finger_type)
else:
    robot = sim_finger.SimFinger(finger_type)

def step(action):
    for _ in range(steps_per_control):
        t = robot.append_desired_action(action)
        observation = robot.get_observation()

You can see an example of this usage in our TriFingerReach environment.

Note

In order to use the RealFinger class, you would need additional packages from the TriFinger software bundle. See Using colcon.

Real Robot Front End with Simulation Back End

The robot_fingers package provides an robot_interfaces-based interface to the hardware of the real TriFinger robots.

It is possible to use the front end of the real-robot interface but with the simulation plugged in as back end. This allows using the exact same code for simulation and real robot. For more information on this, see How to use the Simulation Backend in the robot_fingers documentation.