Simulation of particle-particle interactions in Isaac Sim

[kidpaul94]

Hello everyone,

I'm currently trying to set up a simulation environment in Isaac Sim and train RL for pneumatic non-prehensile robotic manipulation. Basically, the robot has to manipulate particles (e.g., dust or sand) with pneumatic force.

I'm currently having a trouble, as this should ideally involve particle-particle interactions, which is not natively supported by Isaac Sim 5.0 as far as I know.

Hence, my current approach is to model air particles as a set of small rigid spheres, and shoot them towards a certain direction to collide with dust or sand that are actually modeled as a particle system.

I have 2 main questions related to this setup:

1. After a small sub-set of particles in the particle system is moved due to the collision with the rigid spheres, is there a way to track the position of the particles? This is probably the very first thing I need to know, as I'm planning to check whether RL succeeds in completing the task based on the xyz positions of the particles.

2. Does anybody know where I can find at least a minimal or related example of shooting rigid objects? It is extremely difficult to search things, as all documentations are here and there, and not cleanly organized.

[michaellin6]

Hi @kidpaul94, for your application I would recommend spawning the particles individually (e.g. small spheres) and keep a references to each so that you can track them individually. You can shoot them by setting an initial velocity or use force fields to propel them.

There is no example for this specific application, but you can try the Force field example or the initial linear velocity.