Train in Simulation, Deploy on a Real Robot: Microduck with Isaac Lab 3.0

This post was written in collaboration with Antoine Pirrone, Augustin Crampette, Matthieu Lapeyre, Coralie Deplanne, Anne-Charlotte Passanisi, and Thomas Wolf.

TL;DR

Microduck is a newly released affordable open-source bipedal robot by Pollen Robotics and Hugging Face. And now you can train Microduck to walk with Isaac Lab and Newton. Test the policy, export it as ONNX, and deploy it on the real robot. Share it on the Hugging Face Hub or validate it for competition in Microduck Arena, then explore more advanced tasks with NVIDIA Isaac Lab.

Introduction

A walking policy trained in simulation must also handle the friction, delays, and mechanical play of real robot servos.. NVIDIA Isaac Lab is an open-source framework for training policies across thousands of GPU-parallel simulations. With Newton, actuator modeling, and domain randomization, developers can prepare policies for real hardware. Microduck brings this workflow to life: train a walking policy in simulation, export it as ONNX, and deploy it on a real biped robot.

This tutorial walks you through training and evaluating Microduck with Isaac Lab and Newton, then exporting the policy for deployment. From there, you can share your model on the Hugging Face Hub, test its compatibility and compete in Microduck Arena, or put it to work on your own Microduck. Walking is the starting point—with linked examples to help you explore more of Isaac Lab 3.0.

1. Install Isaac Lab and prepare for Microduck training

For the simulation and training portion, you’ll need:

• A Linux workstation with a supported NVIDIA GPU and driver. See requirements.

• Git and uv.

For deployment, you’ll also need:

• A configured physical Microduck.

• Its onboard robot software is installed and working.

• A supported control interface, such as a paired gamepad.

Quick install

On Linux with a supported NVIDIA GPU and driver, install uv (skip the first two lines if it is already available), clone Isaac Lab, and install its dependencies:

Export the policy for Microduck