Planning Manipulation Tasks

When To Use

Use this skill when a user is creating, migrating, or debugging manipulation tasks such as reach, grasp, lift, place, insertion, or tool-use environments.

Do not use this skill as a replacement for environment construction details. Pair it with isaaclab-building-environments, isaaclab-debugging-rl-training, and isaaclab-using-sensors-actuators as needed.

Workflow

1. Define the task objective as measurable phases: approach, align, pre-contact, contact or grasp, transport or lift, and final goal.
2. Build the minimum scene needed for the first phase: robot, support surfaces, task object, goal, lights, and required sensors.
3. Validate asset physics before training: collision geometry, mass, inertia, joint limits, friction, and contact materials.
4. Validate reset geometry before stepping: robot pose, object pose, goal pose, reachability, and absence of interpenetration.
5. Prove the action contract with scripted or zero-action probes before interpreting PPO results.
6. Add observations that expose the state required by the current phase, especially controlled-frame pose for end-effector or contact tasks.
7. Add rewards for one phase at a time. Keep success reward, termination, and metric geometry consistent.
8. Run a training smoke only after scene, reset, action, observation, and reward checks pass.
9. Validate behavior using deterministic rollout state metrics, not just total reward.