Xingxin on Bug Pico4 Single Arm Teleoperation
This week, I completed the single arm teleoperation setup using the PICO 4. It is really pleasing to see how smooth our trajectory look in the LeRobot Dataset Visualizer. Meantime, the latency between my teleoperated command and the robot updating its state is very low, matching the performance of the DROID. I am pretty satisfied with the result.
| Setup | Diagram |
|---|---|
| Ours(Xbox, legacy) |  |
| Ours(Pico4, current) |  |
| DROID |  |
Franka DUO
It’s also time for me to explore what a Franka DUO actually is. Because it is currently a prototype, I found its documentation and setup quite confusing. Here is my visual summary of the different embodiments related to the “Franka DUO”.
| Stationary Franka DUO | Spine Franka DUO | Mobile Franka DUO |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
| the DUO can’t move | moving 1DOF | moving 1 DOF + 2 DOF |
This table only compares their visuals and basic kinematics. After digging into the franka_ros2: ROS 2 integration for Franka research robots, I realized that implementing the controller is even more complex. Even the official Franka team doesn’t have a single standard solution for it yet!
Approximate Value Function
After warming up my brain last week, I was finally able to pick up some new knowledge from ADM. Here are my study notes from this week: How to Approximate Value Functions with Linear Regression?.
New Water Sport Center
I tried out a different water sport center in the northeast of Hong Kong: the Wong Shek Water Sport Center, located in a beautiful region called Sai Kung. I was also fortune enough to practice a new technique called the “flare gybe” with a licensed instructor. He told me this is a fundamental skill to master before learning the fast gybe! : -)
However, the wind direction there is super weird because the bay is surrounded by mountains. The wind can completely shift directions between the morning and the afternoon! Some areas have strong wind while others have none at all. This was the first time I learned how to avoid getting trapped in a “no-wind zone”. It is actually quite easy to spot. You just look at the water’s surface and avoid the flat, glass-like patches.