45.4ROMay 23
IsaacIPC: Coupling High-Fidelity Simulation and Realistic Rendering for Contact-Rich Robotic SystemsQixin Liang, Zhongqing Han
We present IsaacIPC, a robotic simulation framework that couples GPU accelerated incremental potential contact (IPC) with IsaacSim/Lab. IsaacIPC maps simulated deformation between simulation and visual meshes, enabling real-time realistic rendering with applications to data collection and policy evaluation. For tactile sensing, we introduce the geometric mortar contact potential (GMCP), which defines a barrier potential over contact samples on tactile surfaces to better resolve contact-pressure distributions. We evaluate GMCP on contact benchmarks and demonstrate IsaacIPC on rigid-deformable robotic simulations including a quadruped robot, a dexterous hand, and a universal manipulation interface (UMI) gripper.