Repository: https://github.com/isaac-for-healthcare/i4h-tutorials

Robot Digital Twin (Bring your own robot)

The Robot Digital Twin pipeline turns your robot descriptions (URDF, CAD) into simulation-ready articulated assets in Universal Scene Description (USD) format. This lets you integrate custom robots—surgical arms, mobile platforms, or instrumented end-effectors—into Isaac Sim for teleoperation, trajectory generation, and policy evaluation alongside the Hospital and Patient digital twin pipelines.

Pipeline Overview

The typical robot digital twin workflow flows from importing your robot definition through USD conversion and physics rigging to integration in a scene:

flowchart LR
    A("Import robot (URDF / CAD)") --> B("Convert to USD")
    B --> C("Rig for simulation")
    C --> D("Integrate in scene")

Available Components

1. Bring your own robot
   • Bring Your Own Robot — Import custom robots from URDF or CAD, convert to USD, and rig them in Isaac Sim (collision meshes, joints, articulation root). Includes a step-by-step example for replacing the Franka hand with an ultrasound probe for robotic ultrasound scanning.

For environment setup, robot rigging in an operating room, and teleoperation (e.g. OpenXR), see the Hospital Digital Twin pipeline.