How to run franka simulation

[BasharAlbakri27]

Hello CRISP developers,

I am new to CRISP and I am currently trying to understand the pipeline step by step.

My immediate goal is to run the Franka demo in simulation only, ideally with RViz first, before attempting any physical hardware workflow. Later on, I would like to adapt the configuration files to support my lab’s robot arm, but for now I just want to get the supported Franka demo running properly in simulation.

So far, I have:

• cloned the crisp_controllers_demos repository
• run:
  docker compose up launch_franka

When I run docker compose up launch_franka, I see errors/issues in the terminal output, but then it ends with:

launch_franka-1 exited with code 0

So I am not sure whether the launch actually completed successfully, whether it is only doing some setup and exiting by design, or whether I am still missing another step to bring up the simulation and RViz.

Also, when I run:

docker compose run --rm franka-overlay bash

it does place me inside the Docker container in the ~/ros2_ws workspace, and I can see the CRISP and Franka packages there. So it seems like the environment is being built, but I do not yet understand the intended next step for actually running the simulation workflow.

Could you please clarify:

1. What is the recommended way to run the Franka demo in simulation only?
2. Is docker compose up launch_franka expected to launch RViz and keep running, or is it only expected to do setup and then exit?
3. After entering the container with docker compose run --rm franka-overlay bash, what command should I run next to start the Franka simulation properly?
4. If RViz is supported in this Docker workflow, are there any additional GUI/X11 forwarding steps required?

Sorry if this is more of a usage question than an issue. I would really appreciate any guidance on the intended simulation-only workflow.

Thank you.