MuJoCo UR10 Space Robotics Simulation
Personal Simulation Project
Overview
This is an upcoming personal project simulating a UR10 robotic arm operating in a space environment using MuJoCo. It is in the early planning and setup stage. The section below separates what is actually built from what is planned, so the scope is not overstated.
Why this project
A robotic arm mounted on a spacecraft behaves differently from the same arm bolted to a factory floor. Motion of the arm can move the spacecraft itself, gravity is effectively absent, and there is no fixed ground truth to plan against. I wanted to explore that class of problem in simulation, starting from a simplified case and adding complexity as each stage is actually working.
Planned scope
The project is organized as a sequence of stages. Later stages depend on the earlier ones working correctly and are not guaranteed to be reached on a fixed timeline.
- Stage 1, fixed base, zero gravity. Model the UR10 arm in MuJoCo with its base fixed in place and no gravity, to validate basic arm dynamics and control.
- Stage 2, free floating base (planned). Let the spacecraft base move freely in response to arm motion, which changes how the arm needs to be controlled.
- Stage 3, target capture (planned). Simulate the arm capturing a target object under free floating base dynamics.
- Stage 4, motion planning (planned). Add motion planning on top of the dynamics model instead of scripted or manual trajectories.
- Stage 5, disturbances (planned). Introduce disturbances to test robustness of the control approach.
- Stage 6, visual servoing (planned). Explore closing the control loop with simulated visual feedback.
Tools and technologies
Current status
In progress, early stage
This project has not been completed. Work so far is focused on setting up the fixed base, zero gravity simulation of the UR10 arm in MuJoCo, which is Stage 1 above. The free floating base, target capture, motion planning, disturbance, and visual servoing stages are future goals and have not been implemented. This page will be updated as each stage is actually built and tested, not as it is planned.
What I expect to learn
- How rigid body dynamics change in a zero gravity, free floating environment compared to a fixed base
- How base motion coupling complicates control of a mounted manipulator
- Practical experience setting up and validating a physics simulation in MuJoCo
- The basics of motion planning under a more complex dynamics model