Teleop Devices

A teleop device is the human input interface for teleoperation — it translates operator input (keyboard, SpaceMouse, or XR hand tracking) into robot commands during demonstration collection.

Arena’s teleop devices are a thin wrapper around Isaac Lab’s built-in devices, added so they can be registered by name and discovered from the device registry, the same way assets and embodiments are.

from isaaclab_arena.assets.register import register_device

@register_device
class KeyboardCfg(TeleopDeviceBase):
    name = "keyboard"

    def get_device_cfg(self, pipeline_builder=None, embodiment=None) -> Se3KeyboardCfg:
        return Se3KeyboardCfg(pos_sensitivity=0.05, rot_sensitivity=0.05)

The @register_device decorator makes the device available by name. The wrapper implements a single method, get_device_cfg(), that returns the underlying Isaac Lab device configuration.

To add teleoperation to an environment, pick a device by name and pass it in:

teleop_device = device_registry.get_device_by_name("keyboard")()

environment = IsaacLabArenaEnvironment(
    name="kitchen_pick_and_place",
    embodiment=embodiment,
    scene=scene,
    task=task,
    teleop_device=teleop_device,
)

env = ArenaEnvBuilder(environment, args_cli).make_registered()

teleop_device is optional — omit it for policy evaluation and include it when collecting demonstrations.

Available devices

keyboard

WASD-style SE3 control with configurable sensitivity. Good for quick setup and simple manipulation tasks.

spacemouse

6-DOF spatial control. More precise than the keyboard; suitable for fine manipulation.

openxr

XR hand tracking via the isaacteleop retargeting pipeline. Maps hand poses and controller input to robot joint commands.

For a full walkthrough — collecting demonstrations on a static manipulation task using an Apple Vision Pro or Meta Quest — see Teleoperation Data Collection.