Booster Deploy

Booster Deploy is a lightweight deployment framework that supports running control policies on Booster robots (sim2real), MuJoCo (sim2sim), and Webots (internal sim2sim). The system adopts many well-established designs from IsaacLab to provide modular abstractions, allowing unified policy execution across both simulated and real robotic platforms.

Prerequisites

Environment	Notes
Booster firmware >= v1.4	Required for real robot deployments.
Python 3.10+	Already installed on the robot
ROS 2 Humble	Required for /low_state + /joint_ctrl topics. Already installed on the robot.
MuJoCo / Webots	Optional; install if you plan to run the respective simulators.

Running Deployments

Add and list tasks:

1. Create a subfolder under tasks/ for your task.
2. Implement a Policy/PolicyCfg and provide a ControllerCfg referencing the policy.
3. Place policy checkpoints under models/ and reference the path in the config.
4. Register your ControllerCfg config in the task registry (see existing tasks for the registration pattern).
5. Check all available tasks:

   python3 scripts/deploy.py --list

Run Sim2Sim (MuJoCo)

• Download and install BoosterAssets:

  • Clone the booster_assets which contains Booster robot models and resources.
  • Install booster_assets python helper following the instructions in the repository.

• Install Python dependencies on local machine:

  pip install -r requirements.txt
  

• Launch the task in mujoco:

  python scripts/deploy.py --task <TASK_NAME> --mujoco

Run Sim2Real (Real Robots)

IMPORTANT: Make sure to install Booster Firmware >= v1.4 on the robot before proceeding.

• After you finish testing your task with Sim2Sim locally, copy the project to the robot.

• Install Booster Robotic SDK on robot:

  • Clone the latest Booster Robotics SDK repository into the robot.
  • Follow the build instructions in the SDK repository.
  • Important: Make sure to build and install the Python bindings:

    cd booster_robotics_sdk
    mkdir build && cd build
    cmake .. -DBUILD_PYTHON_BINDING=ON
    make -j$(nproc)
    sudo make install

• Install Python dependencies on the robot:

  pip install -r requirements.txt
  

• SSH into the robot and start the ROS 2 environment by sourcing the provided setup script:

  source /opt/booster/BoosterRos2Interface/install/setup.bash

• Launch the task on the robot and follow the prompts shown in the command line..

  python3 scripts/deploy.py --task <TASK_NAME>

Repository Layout

booster_deploy/
├─ booster_deploy/           # Controllers, policies, utilities
├─ scripts/                  # Entry-point scripts (deploy.py)
├─ tasks/                    # Task registry and configs
├─ requirements.txt          # Python dependencies
└─ fastdds_profile.xml       # Default FastDDS settings for ROS 2

Key modules:

• booster_deploy/: Core module providing a unified abstraction for both simulators and physical robots, and handling communication via ROS 2 (implements a /low_state subscriber and a /low_cmd publisher to bridge policies to hardware).

• booster_deploy/robots/: Robot configuration modules. This folder contains booster robot configs by defining a RobotCfg describing:

  • joint names and body names
  • default joint positions
  • default joint stiffness (joint_stiffness) and damping (joint_damping)
  • effort limits
  • mjcf_path for MuJoCo model loading
  • prepare_state (prepare pose, stiffness and damping used when entering custom mode)

• tasks/: User task definitions and implementations. Each task module contains:

  • Policy/PolicyCfg class implementing the inference logic;
  • a ControllerCfg class describing the task configuration including the policy;
  • registering a task with a ControllerCfg instance.

  Typical task layout (example):

  tasks/my_task/
  ├─ __init__.py        # registers the task via utils.register.register_task
  ├─ task.py            # Policy and ControllerCfg implementation
  ├─ models/            # optional policy checkpoints
  └─ motions/           # optional motion primitives or recordings