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🛠️ Working with the A1

This page is the hub for hands-on work with our lab’s A1: networking, onboard compute, SDK/ROS stack, and low-level control.

🧠 Onboard Compute & 🔌 Networking​

This robot has three computing elements:

  1. Controller Board — hard real-time motor control (192.168.123.10).
  2. NVIDIA Jetson (on-board PC) — vision/ML/SLAM (192.168.123.161). Front body ports (towards head) map to the Jetson.
  3. Raspberry Pi (on-board PC) — utilities/bridges/logging (192.168.123.12). Rear body ports (towards tail) map to the Pi.

Architecture diagram - source A1 architecture

🔗 Network Topology​

  • Subnet: 192.168.123.0/24 (static IPs)
    • Controller: 192.168.123.10
    • Jetson: 192.168.123.161
    • Raspberry Pi: 192.168.123.12
  • An internal switch links controller ↔ Jetson ↔ Pi. Connect your laptop by Ethernet to join the LAN.

💻 Quick Connect from Laptop​

  1. Set a static IP on your Ethernet interface in 192.168.123.0/24. 
    sudo ip addr add 192.168.123.200/24 dev eth0
    sudo ip link set eth0 up
  2. SSH (with X forwarding): 
    # NVIDIA Jetson (front ports)
    ssh -X unitree@192.168.123.161
    # Raspberry Pi (rear ports)
    ssh -X unitree@192.168.123.12
    Default password (both): 123.

⚙️ Unitree Legged SDK — Joint-Level Control (UDP)​

The Unitree Legged SDK communicates directly with the controller board over UDP to issue joint-level commands.
Use the specific release here: unitree_legged_sdk v3.2.

Install and quick test​

  1. Install the SDK on an external machine (for example, your laptop). Do not install or run it on the onboard PCs.
  2. Connect your machine to the robot network: either SSH into any onboard machine or plug an Ethernet cable into either of the two external Ethernet ports on the robot body.
  3. Build and run the example commands according to the repository README to verify communication.
  4. For a minimal check, run an example such as: 
    ./example torque
    This briefly sends a command to a single leg joint.
warning

Safety first: The robot can move suddenly and erratically when running SDK examples. Hoist the robot with a tether and keep clear of the legs.

Note: When deploying a high-frequency controller using this SDK (for example, a control policy), prefer a wired connection for stability.

ROS interface​

For a ROS interface to this SDK, use unitree_ros_to_real.

🧩 Useful Open-Source Projects​

Gazebo simulation + ROS interface​

RL training in Raisim​

Hardware deployment with SDK integration​

Contributors:

Ibrahim Suder
Ibrahim Suder
Research Student in ML and Robotics