System Architecture¶

flowchart TD
    subgraph WS["Workstation — RTX 3090"]
        direction LR
        subgraph SIM["Isaac Sim 5.1"]
            G1S["Simulated G1<br/>cameras, IMU, joints"]
            BRIDGE["ROS 2 Bridge"]
        end
        subgraph ROS["Isaac ROS Container"]
            PERC["GPU Perception<br/>cuVSLAM, AprilTag, nvblox"]
            VIZ["Foxglove Bridge :8765<br/>H.264 NVENC republisher"]
        end
    end
    FOX["Foxglove Studio<br/>(any browser)"]

    BRIDGE -- "UDP DDS" --> ROS
    ROS -- "UDP DDS" --> BRIDGE
    VIZ -- "WebSocket :8765" --> FOX

Data Flow (Sim)¶

1. Isaac Sim renders scene + simulates physics for G1 robot
2. Bundled ROS 2 bridge publishes camera, IMU, joint state topics via DDS
3. Isaac ROS container receives topics over UDP DDS (FastDDS SHM disabled)
4. GPU perception runs on RTX 3090: SLAM, AprilTag, nvblox
5. H.264 NVENC republisher encodes camera feeds for remote viewing
6. foxglove-bridge exposes all topics over WebSocket on port 8765
7. Foxglove Studio connects from browser (Mac via Tailscale)

Isaac Lab Training¶

• Isaac Lab runs headless in the isaaclab conda env
• Trains RL policies for G1 locomotion, manipulation
• No Isaac ROS container needed during training (pure sim loop)
• Trained policies deploy to real G1 via unitree_ros2

flowchart TD
    subgraph G1["Unitree G1 — Jetson Orin"]
        direction LR
        SENS["Onboard Sensors<br/>stereo cameras, IMU, depth"]
        G1SW["unitree_sdk2 + unitree_ros2<br/>CycloneDDS"]
        PERC["Onboard Perception<br/>cuVSLAM, AprilTag, nvblox"]
        FOX["Foxglove Bridge :8765"]
    end
    STUDIO["Foxglove Studio<br/>(any browser)"]

    SENS --> PERC
    PERC --> G1SW
    FOX -- "WebSocket :8765" --> STUDIO

Data Flow (Real)¶

1. G1's Orin runs everything onboard — no workstation involved
2. Onboard sensors publish camera, IMU, joint state topics via CycloneDDS
3. Perception runs on Orin's GPU (cuVSLAM, AprilTag, nvblox)
4. Trained RL policies (from Isaac Lab) control locomotion and manipulation
5. foxglove-bridge on the Orin provides remote visualization
6. Foxglove Studio connects from any browser on the network

G1 Network Topology¶

G1 ROS 2 Topics¶

DDS Configuration¶

G1 uses CycloneDDS (not FastDDS). Set in the Isaac ROS container:

export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp
export CYCLONEDDS_URI='<CycloneDDS><Domain><General><Interfaces>
  <NetworkInterface name="eth0" priority="default" multicast="default"/>
</Interfaces></General></Domain></CycloneDDS>'

ros2_jazzy base image ships with rmw_cyclonedds_cpp pre-installed.

Workstation vs Orin¶

The workstation (RTX 3090) is for simulation and training only. The real G1 runs autonomously on its Jetson Orin.