DROID/OpenPI Lab Pipeline
This guide documents the lab workflow for using the current DROID hardware with OpenPI policies. It follows the same high-level structure as the official DROID docs, but it is specific to our setup:
- Use DROID teleoperation to collect RealSense demonstrations.
- Convert and publish the dataset for lab use.
- Fine-tune
pi05_droid_finetunefrom this OpenPI repo. - Start a policy server on the lab 4090 workstation.
- Start the low-level DROID robot server on the NUC.
- Run the VLA rollout client on the control laptop.
If you only want to run the existing policy and do not want to collect data or fine-tune, skip the data collection and CHTC sections. Start with the 4090 policy server, then the NUC server, then the control laptop rollout.
System Roles
| Machine | Role | Current default |
|---|---|---|
| 4090 workstation | Runs OpenPI policy inference server. | /home/kindred/Desktop/repo/openpi, port 8000 |
| NUC | Runs the DROID low-level Franka/Polymetis server. | hcilab@192.168.4.4, port 4242 |
| Control laptop | Runs DROID GUI, RealSense cameras, teleoperation, and rollout client. | /home/kindred/Desktop/repo/droid |
| CHTC Access Point | Submits fine-tuning jobs. | ap2002.chtc.wisc.edu |
| CHTC Transfer host | Moves large datasets/checkpoints through staging. | transfer.chtc.wisc.edu, /staging/y/yyi49 |