NVIDIA Isaac Setup (Optional)#

This setup is optional — skip it if you only run on the real robot or with Gazebo. It is needed for two NVIDIA components used by the examples:

Isaac Sim — the desktop simulator that renders the robot for the Simulation and HIL modes. Set up Isaac Sim Desktop Setup if you run any *_simulation or *_hil scene.
Isaac ROS — the GPU-accelerated perception base images used by the isaac-ros_* build flavors (cuMotion, Nvblox, YOLO). Set up Isaac ROS Setup if you build the manipulator container with MOVENSYS_ROS_VERSION=isaac-ros_4.1 or isaac-ros_3.2.

Both require an NVIDIA GPU and Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04.

Isaac Sim Desktop Setup#

1. Download#

Download Isaac Sim 5.0.0 (the isaac-sim-standalone-5.0.0-linux-x86_64.zip package).

2. Install#

mkdir ~/isaacsim
cd ~/Downloads
unzip "isaac-sim-standalone-5.0.0-linux-x86_64.zip" -d ~/isaacsim
cd ~/isaacsim
./post_install.sh

3. Configure the ROS 2 bridge environment#

Add the following to your ~/.bashrc:

export ROS_DISTRO=jazzy                 # {jazzy, humble}
source /opt/ros/$ROS_DISTRO/setup.bash
export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/$ROS_DISTRO/lib

4. Run with the ROS 2 bridge#

~/isaacsim/isaac-sim.selector.sh

In the Isaac Sim App Selector, make sure the ROS Bridge Extension is set to isaacsim.ros2.bridge, then click Start.

Isaac ROS Setup#

Required only for the isaac-ros_* build flavors. Because the RTX 50xx GPU driver is not supported by the Ubuntu desktop installer, install Ubuntu Server first and add the desktop afterwards. Pick the tab that matches your MOVENSYS_ROS_VERSION.

isaac-ros_4.1 (Ubuntu 24.04 / Jazzy)

1. Set up the NVIDIA workspace:

mkdir -p ~/workspaces/isaac_ros-dev/src
echo 'export ISAAC_ROS_WS="${ISAAC_ROS_WS:-${HOME}/workspaces/isaac_ros-dev/}"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Configure the Isaac ROS apt repository:

locale  # check for UTF-8
sudo apt update && sudo apt install locales
sudo locale-gen en_US en_US.UTF-8
sudo update-locale LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

sudo apt update && sudo apt install curl gnupg
sudo apt install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt-get update

k="/usr/share/keyrings/nvidia-isaac-ros.gpg"
curl -fsSL https://isaac.download.nvidia.com/isaac-ros/repos.key | sudo gpg --dearmor | sudo tee -a $k > /dev/null
f="/etc/apt/sources.list.d/nvidia-isaac-ros.list"
sudo touch $f
s="deb [signed-by=$k] https://isaac.download.nvidia.com/isaac-ros/release-4.1 noble main"
grep -qxF "$s" $f || echo "$s" | sudo tee -a $f
sudo apt-get update

Initialize the Isaac ROS CLI:

pip install termcolor --break-system-packages
sudo apt-get install isaac-ros-cli

2. Install Docker — see Install Docker Engine on Ubuntu, then allow Docker without sudo:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
newgrp docker
sudo chmod 666 /var/run/docker.sock
sudo systemctl restart docker

3. Install the NVIDIA Container Toolkit — install and configure per the NVIDIA Container Toolkit guide, install Git LFS, and restart Docker:

sudo apt-get install git-lfs
git lfs install --skip-repo
sudo systemctl daemon-reload && sudo systemctl restart docker

4. Initialize and activate the Isaac ROS container:

sudo isaac-ros init docker
isaac-ros activate

isaac-ros_3.2 (Ubuntu 22.04 / Humble)

1. Install Docker — see Install Docker Engine on Ubuntu, then allow Docker without sudo:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
newgrp docker
sudo chmod 666 /var/run/docker.sock

2. Install the NVIDIA Container Toolkit — install and configure per the NVIDIA Container Toolkit guide, then restart Docker and install Git LFS:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload && sudo systemctl restart docker
sudo apt-get install git-lfs
git lfs install --skip-repo

3. Set up and test the Isaac ROS container:

mkdir -p ~/workspaces/isaac_ros-dev/src
export ISAAC_ROS_WS=${HOME}/workspaces/isaac_ros-dev/

cd ${ISAAC_ROS_WS}/src && \
  git clone -b release-3.2 https://github.com/NVIDIA-ISAAC-ROS/isaac_ros_common.git
cd $ISAAC_ROS_WS && ./src/isaac_ros_common/scripts/run_dev.sh

Verify the images were pulled:

docker image list

You should see isaac_ros_dev-x86_64:latest and x86_64-image:latest.

Scenes#

The ready-to-open USD scenes come from the movensys-simulation repository. Clone it alongside the manipulator workspace:

mkdir -p ~/workspaces
cd ~/workspaces
git clone https://github.com/movensys/movensys-simulation.git

Scenes are organized under dobot_cr3a/ and dobot_cr5a/ and named <n><mode>_<example>.usd, where the mode suffix selects how the robot is driven:

Suffix	Mode	Purpose
`a`	simulation	Pure Isaac Sim — no physical hardware needed
`b`	hil	Hardware-in-the-loop — simulation with the WMX runtime
`c`	real	Visualization against the real robot

The CR3A directory provides scenes for the trajectory, AprilTag pick-and-place, obstacle avoidance, RoboPoly, and AprilTag obstacle-avoidance examples; the CR5A directory currently provides the trajectory scene. In the App Selector (Play), open a scene such as ~/workspaces/movensys-simulation/dobot_cr3a/3a_trajectory_simulation.usd, click Play, then run the matching manipulator scenario to drive the robot.