iCub simulator in PyBullet

[rustlluk]

Hello everyone,
With @matejhof we have a course on humanoid robotics at our university. So far, we used simulated iCub in Gazebo as a platform for assignments. However, our students were complaining about C++, the necessity to learn YARP only for the sake of the course, and the hardware requirements to run the simulation smoothly.
So, I decided to create a less demanding simulator of iCub in Python based on PyBullet. You can check it here https://github.com/rustlluk/pyCub.
I know that Pybullet-robot-envs exists, but as it is no longer in development, I decided that something I develop from scratch will be easier to fix and maintain.

An example of a ball on a table scene :

What is currently implemented:

• control in joint and cartesian space
  • without a proper planner, i.e., users have to take care of the trajectory and collision avoidance
• worlds can be changed through yaml configuration files
• skin can be simulated as well
• visualization is done with Open3D, because I don't like the default one
  • output from both eyes can be accessed as well

It may still be quite buggy. We will start the new semester in mid-February, and I assume the students will test it properly :) My plan is to fix possible problems that may occur during the course, refactor the code after that, and optimize some things.

I do not have any plans to develop more features, as it is probably enough for our case right now. However, if someone finds it useful, I am open to new ideas and requests for features :)

[Nicogene]

cc @robotology/everyone

[pattacini]

Nice work @rustlluk @matejhof 🚀

[pattacini]

A side note 😄

However, our students were complaining about C++

Today's students!

[alecive]

Don't even get me started on this 🤦

[myl1ne]

I'm happy to see we all share the same burden xD