get_started

Welcome to the Machines in Motion Lab !! In this page you will learn how to get started with using the codebase in the lab.

The most commonly used packages used in the lab are :

1. Pinocchio - A rigid body dynamic library used to for robot math.
2. Crocoddyl - A efficient robot optimization package

it will be best to install them by following the links first !

Setting up the simulation environment

After installing these packages, the next step will be to take a look at mim_robots. Mim_robots contains APIs to easily setup simulations with robots used in the lab (such as Solo12, Kuka IIWA ...). It allows you to switch between different simulators based on your preference.

Getting started with Crocoddyl

A nice place to start with croccoddyl is this repository . The croc_mpc_utils provides simple examples on how to setup an optimization problem with crocoddyl for the Kuka Robot. It contains APIs that make problem constructions easy. The same principles can be used for other robots as well.

Getting started with Non linear MPC

There are two places one can start to look

1. mim_solvers - This package contains efficiently implemented SQPs that exploit sparsity for optimal control problems. The also contain several solver options underneath to switch between based on preference.
2. BiconMP - Its a fast non linear optimization package for MPC. The details on how to use it are in the repository.

Note : The recommendation is to use mim_solvers over biconvexMP because it more generic and powerful .

Getting started with robot hardware

Check the links in the wiki for robot hardware. They provide information on how to work with the robots in the lab !