Running Isaac SDK on Kaya

Once you have built your own NVIDIA Kaya robot, follow the steps on this page to run some sample applications on it.

Complete these prerequisite steps before running applications on Kaya:

  1. Install the Jetson operating system on your Jetson Nano as described in the Getting Started With Jetson Nano guide.

  2. Obtain the IP address of the robot as described in the Getting Started With Jetson Nano guide.

  3. Follow the Setup guide to install Isaac SDK, along with all of its dependencies, on the Jetson Nano.

  4. Follow the steps in the Deploying and Running on Jetson section to register your SSH key with Kaya.

The following steps deploy a simple joystick application that uses a paired PS4 controller to control Kaya. The same steps can be used for deploying and running other applications on your robot.

  1. To run the //apps/kaya:joystick joystick application on Kaya, deploy the package from your desktop to Kaya with the following command:

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    bob@desktop:~/isaac$ ./engine/build/deploy.sh --remote_user <username_on_robot> -p //apps/kaya:joystick-pkg -d jetpack44 -h <robot_ip>

    where <robot_ip> is the IP address of the robot and <username_on_robot> is your username on Kaya.

    Note

    If a username is not specified with the --remote_user option, the username defaults to nvidia.

    The -d jetpack44 option specifies that you are building and deploying to a Jetson device with Jetpack version 4.4.

  2. Log in to Kaya:

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    bob@desktop:~/isaac$ ssh <username_on_robot>@<robot_ip>

  3. Go to the deployment folder on Kaya and run the application:

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    bob@jetson:~/$ cd deploy/<bob>/joystick-pkg/ bob@jetson:~/deploy/<bob>/joystick-pkg$ ./apps/kaya/joystick

    Where <bob> is your username on the host system.

By default, the L1 button on the controller functions as a deadman trigger. The robot will follow joystick commands only when the trigger is pressed.

The following steps deploy the Follow Me application, which moves Kaya autonomously towards a designated AprilTag fiducial. This application combines AprilTag detection, path planning, control, and the Kaya driver. It requires a working Intel RealSense camera for AprilTag detection and path planning and a joystick to enable autonomous mode.

  1. Deploy //apps/kaya:follow_me-pkg to Kaya as shown in step 1 of the Joystick Application.

  2. Switch to the directory on Kaya and run the application with the following commands:

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    cd deploy/<your_username>/follow_me-pkg/ ./apps/kaya/follow_me

  3. Open Isaac Sight on the desktop browser at <robot_ip>:3000. In the Application Configuration panel on the right, click on “fiducial_as_goal” and change the “target_fiducial_id” value to the ID of the AprilTag in use.

If you put the AprilTag within the field of view of the RealSense camera, you should see in the Follower Kaya - Camera window that the AprilTag is detected and a planned path, displayed as a blue line, connects Kaya to the AprilTag.

If you hold down the R1 button on the controller, Kaya will enter autonomous mode and move towards the AprilTag. Move the AprilTag around while keeping it within view of the camera, and Kaya will follow it around.

This application uses DetectNetv2 on Kaya to perform object detection. The DetectNetv2 model is trained to recognize a tennis ball. Here are the steps for running this application.

  1. Deploy //apps/kaya:object_detection-pkg to Kaya as shown in step 1 of the Joystick Application..

  2. Switch to the directory on Kaya and run the application with the following commands:

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    cd deploy/<your_username>/object_detection-pkg/ ./apps/kaya/object_detection_kaya

    Open Isaac Sight on the desktop browser at <robot_ip>:3000. You should see a live camera image.

  3. Place a tennis ball in front of Kaya’s camera, and you should see a bounding box around the object labeled “tennis_ball”. This sample was trained on a limited dataset and is not guaranteed to work in every situation and lighting condition. To improve model accuracy in a custom environment, see the instructions to train on custom models in docker or the object detection training documentation

The GMapping application demonstrates how to use Kaya to build an occupancy map of its environment. Kaya perceives the depth of obstacles with its RealSense camera and updates its own state using the wheel odometry and IMU. It then publishes the obstacle depth and robot state information to the host, which builds a map.

This application has two parts: gmapping_distributed_kaya, which runs on Kaya, and gmapping_distributed_host, which runs on the host machine.

  1. Deploy //apps/kaya:gmapping_distributed_kaya-pkg to Kaya as shown in step 1 of the Joystick Application.

  2. Switch to the directory on Kaya and run the application with the following commands:

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    cd deploy/<your_username>/gmapping_distributed_kaya-pkg/ ./apps/kaya/gmapping_distributed_kaya

    Open Isaac Sight on the desktop browser at <nano_ip>:3000. You should see the camera RGB and depth image, as well as a plot of the robot state.

  3. Use the joystick to drive Kaya around. You should see the robot state being updated.

  4. On the desktop system, open app/kaya/gmapping_distributed_host.app.json and change the tcp-subscriber host from "YOUR_NANO_IP_HERE" to the IP address of the Jetson Nano on Kaya.

  5. Build and run the host application with the following commands:

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    bazel build //apps/kaya:gmapping_distributed_host bazel run //apps/kaya:gmapping_distributed_host

  6. Open Isaac Sight on the desktop at localhost:3000. You should see the map that Kaya is building. Use the joystick to drive Kaya around and observe the map updates.

If you see performance issues with the map updates, go to the Kaya page on Isaac Sight and disable camera RGB and depth visualization by unchecking Channels - viewer.

© Copyright 2018-2020, NVIDIA Corporation. Last updated on Feb 1, 2023.