MANUAL

Hand-drive a real robot with one slider per joint — no policy in the loop. Stage a target pose, preview it as a ghost arm, CONNECT, then SEND TO REAL; the button becomes STOP mid-dispatch. HOME returns the arm to its rest pose.

Overview

MANUAL is the only tab that drives the arm with no policy in the loop. Use it for hardware bring-up, parking at a known pose, or verifying that the configured transport actually drives the robot. No policy server is required.

Connect, stage a pose, send it, or go home

The control column has four panels, top to bottom: connect, dispatch, tuning, target joints.

Panel / control	What it does
CONNECT	Toggles connect/disconnect to the real robot; the line above shows link status (see Connecting to the robot). Greyed out when the transport is not a live type.
SEND TO REAL ▶	Dispatch the staged target to the real robot. Clickable only when connected and receiving live data. Mid-dispatch the button becomes a red STOP ■ that halts motion immediately.
HOME ⌂	Set the target to the robot's rest pose and send it. The rest pose comes from your config (see Config). Always clickable.
publish rate Hz + APPLY ⤓	Adjust the dispatch rate (frames per second). Change the value and click APPLY (or press Enter); a line below shows `applying… / applied / failed`. Defaults to the config's `publish_rate`.
sliders (one per joint)	Each slider sets the target angle for one joint (`j00`, `j01`…, range ≈ −3.2 to 3.2 rad). Moving them only updates the staged target and ghost arm; they do not move hardware.

SEND TO REAL is the only action that reaches the robot. The arm interpolates smoothly from the current pose to the staged target rather than teleporting.

On entry the target is seeded from the current measured pose. For dual-arm robots the sliders cover every joint across both arms; one staged pose drives the whole robot.

Connecting to the robot

The CONNECT panel has one toggle button; the line above it shows one of four states:

Status line	Meaning	Button
SIM DEBUG · no real robot	Transport is not a live type — preview only.	CONNECT REAL (greyed out)
SIM DEBUG · press CONNECT REAL	Live transport available, not yet connected.	CONNECT REAL (clickable)
WAITING FOR ROBOT…	Connection requested, no live data yet.	CANCEL
REAL ROBOT · LIVE	Connected and receiving live data.	DISCONNECT

LIVE requires the backend to actually be receiving robot data. With the robot off or silent, the state stays at WAITING FOR ROBOT… and SEND TO REAL remains locked.

The two overlaid arms

MANUAL renders into the shared 3D scene with two arms overlaid:

Solid arm — current measured pose.
Ghost arm — staged target, i.e. where SEND TO REAL will drive it.

The gap between solid and ghost is the move about to be commanded.

Stopping a move that looks wrong

Dispatch is interruptible. Options, fastest to safest:

STOP ■ — mid-dispatch the SEND TO REAL button becomes a red STOP; click halts immediately.
HOME — redirect to the rest pose.
Physical e-stop for true emergencies — the console does not replace hardware safety.

When SEND TO REAL actually moves the arm

Two conditions: transport type and connection state. CONNECT is available only for zmq, ros1, or ros2; SEND TO REAL enables only after connect plus incoming live data. A dataset transport has no live arm — preview only.

MANUAL is always available. Unlike COLLECT or EVAL/RESULT (which require matching config sections), MANUAL is always present. A plain deploy config activates DEBUG, MANUAL, and REPLAY.

The config MANUAL needs

MANUAL has no config section of its own — any deploy config works. Two things matter: a robot definition (so sliders map to joints and HOME has a target) and a live transport (so SEND TO REAL can reach the arm). Launch:

bash

eva --config configs/01_deploy/my_robot/manual.py --web-port 8080

Minimal deploy config — replace the marked values:

python

# Deploy config: MANUAL drives the real arm via a live transport.
# Path is relative to THIS file.
_base_ = ['../../00_base/defaults.py']

robot = dict(
    type='',                 # EDIT: robot key, e.g. 'ur5e' (see list below).
    initial_qpos=None,        # Rest pose for HOME. None uses the robot's default.
)

transport = dict(
    type='',                 # EDIT: 'zmq', 'ros1', or 'ros2'.
)

Transport still needs connection details. IP, port, and topic names are set in Transport. Until that is done, SEND TO REAL will not move anything.

Field	Why MANUAL cares
`transport.type`	Must be `zmq`, `ros1`, or `ros2` for SEND TO REAL to reach a live arm. `dataset` has no live arm.
`robot.type`	Selects the robot and the joints the sliders expose. Built-in keys: `agilex_AGILEX`, `arx_r5`, `dual_franka`, `agibot_g2`, `r1_lite`, `ur5e`. Custom robots: see Add a robot.
`robot.initial_qpos`	HOME's target pose. `None` uses the robot's built-in default. Set explicitly for a specific HOME target; ensure it is collision-free.
`publish_rate`	Default value of the TUNING panel's `publish rate Hz` input; adjustable at runtime.

What success and failure look like

You see…	It means…
Ghost arm tracks the sliders	Staging is working. Nothing has reached hardware yet.
Status reads `REAL ROBOT · LIVE`	Connected and receiving live data; `SEND TO REAL` is enabled.
Status stuck on `WAITING FOR ROBOT…`	No robot data arriving. Check power, e-stop, and transport details.
Solid arm slowly catches up to ghost	Real arm is moving to target.
SEND TO REAL greyed out	Transport is `dataset`, or not connected, or no live data yet. See Connecting to the robot.