[Proposal] Add OneRobotics A1 robotic arm asset to Isaac Lab

[T1Amoo]

Proposal

OneRobotics ([www.onerobot.com](http://www.onerobot.com/)) would like to contribute the OneRobotics A1 robotic arm to Isaac Lab as an officially supported or community-contributed robot asset.

The A1 is a 7-DoF fixed-base robotic arm. We currently have a working Isaac Lab integration available here:

https://github.com/katazen/onerobot_h1

The repository currently includes:

• the A1 robot description and mesh assets;
• an Isaac Lab ArticulationCfg for the A1 right arm;
• a manager-based end-effector pose reach task based on Isaac Lab's existing manipulation/reach framework;
• an RSL-RL training configuration;
• a MuJoCo sim-to-sim validation setup.

Our primary goal is to contribute the A1 robot asset and its Isaac Lab configuration. We are also happy to contribute the reach task as a reference environment if the maintainers consider it useful.

Before preparing the upstream PR, we would like to confirm the preferred contribution structure.

Specifically:

1. Should the OneRobotics A1 configuration be contributed under isaaclab_contrib, isaaclab_assets, or another location?
2. According to the current asset contribution guidelines, should we split the URDF/USD/mesh files into a dedicated asset repository before submitting the PR?
3. Would you prefer the initial contribution to contain only the robot asset/configuration, or should we also include the A1 reach environment as a reference task?

Motivation

OneRobotics would like to make the A1 available to the Isaac Lab community so that researchers and developers can directly use the robot for manipulation, reinforcement learning, sim-to-sim, and sim-to-real research.

Providing an upstream Isaac Lab configuration would also give users a reproducible robot definition with validated articulation, actuator, and joint configuration instead of requiring each user to create their own integration.

The existing implementation has already been validated with an end-effector pose-reaching task in Isaac Lab, and we also maintain a MuJoCo sim-to-sim setup for cross-simulator validation.

Regarding the asset contribution process, we previously contacted NVIDIA about contributing the A1 asset and completed the agreement requested during that process. We are currently following up with our NVIDIA contact regarding the next asset-hosting/legal-approval step.

We are prepared to make the licensing scope for the A1 model assets explicit and compatible with Isaac Lab's asset contribution requirements before submitting the PR.

Alternatives

An alternative is to continue maintaining the A1 integration purely as an external Isaac Lab project.

Another option would be to contribute only the A1 asset/configuration first and keep the reach task in our external repository.

We are happy to follow whichever structure is preferred by the Isaac Lab maintainers.

Build Info

• Isaac Lab Version: target contribution against release/3.0.0-beta2
• Isaac Sim Version: target the Isaac Sim version supported by release/3.0.0-beta2

The current repository is an external Isaac Lab project and we will update it to the maintainer-recommended target before submitting the PR.

Additional context

OneRobotics website:

http://www.onerobot.com/

Current A1 Isaac Lab integration:

https://github.com/katazen/onerobot_h1

The current implementation still contains some external-project/template structure that we intend to clean up before preparing the upstream PR, including package metadata, asset-path handling, and explicit separation of code and asset licensing.

We would prefer to confirm the desired upstream location and asset-hosting structure first so that we can avoid unnecessary restructuring.

Checklist

• I have checked that there is no existing issue specifically proposing the OneRobotics A1 robot asset.

Acceptance Criteria

• Confirm the preferred upstream location for the OneRobotics A1 asset/configuration.
• Confirm the preferred asset-hosting and repository structure.
• Make the A1 asset licensing and redistribution terms explicit.
• Remove local filesystem dependencies and make the asset configuration portable.
• Add the A1 articulation configuration following Isaac Lab conventions.
• Add documentation and appropriate tests.
• Add the A1 reach environment if requested by the maintainers.

[RandomOakForest]

Thank you for posting this. The team will review it and provide next steps.

[ooctipus]

Hi @T1Amoo

Thanks for your interest in making contribution.

We usually take environment and asset together, if you can make a pr to isaaclab with attached assets, our team can work together in ensuring the PR and give feedback. The environment can lands at source/isaaclab_tasks/isaaclab_tasks/contrib/reach, where we landed the contribution from OpenArm.

The once the PR is in good shape and asset passed our legal approval, then it will be ready :D