Nvidia's Open Source Virtual Robot Training Software

I suppose it's no surprise that, as a child, I was really interested in robotics, and I still am as an adult. The Schematical logo is a robot after all.

My career took me towards software and the cloud, but I think I just found a place where the 2 paths may converge in the form of Nvidia’s open source robot training software called “Isaac Lab”.

Building robots is expensive, and allowing them to stumble around in the real world can prove dangerous, time-consuming, and costly.

What if it trips and breaks a leg? Now you have to rebuild that part and replace it.

But what if there was a virtual environment where we could train thousands of different bot control systems in parallel at an insanely fast speed?

The bot trips and breaks a leg in there, and a few milliseconds later its back on its feet with a slightly tweaked version of its neural net ready to attempt to solve the exact same challenge.

That way, when you go to the real world, you know you have a neural net that is the best of millions of variations that has solved thousands of challenges piloting your expensive physical hardware.

It’s a pretty amazing approach.

Why am I writing about this?

I find it fascinating, and I would love to work on a project involving robotics someday… just putting it out there in case anyone knows anyone working on a project like that which could use a hand.