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A rigid body dynamics and contacts simulator written in python.

Project description

Arboris is a rigid body dynamics and contacts simulator written in python.

Arboris includes a generic and easily extensible set of joints (singularity-free multi-dof joints, non-honolomic joints, etc.) which are used to model open rigid mechanisms with a minimal set of state variables.

The dynamics of these systems are computed in a form similar to the Boltzmann-Hamel equations.

Using time-stepping and a semi-implicit Euler integration scheme, a first-order approximation of the model is also computed. This allows for additional constraints such as contacts and kinematic loops to be solved using a Gauss-Seidel algorithm.

Arboris is mostly useful for robotic applications and human motion studies. The python language makes it particularly suited for fast-paced development (prototyping) and education.

Background

In 2005, Alain Micaelli, a researcher from CEA LIST, wrote a first version of the simulator in the matlab language. It was an implementation (and often an extension) of the algorithms described in [Park2005], [Murray1994] and [Liu2003]. He was later joined by Sébastien Barthélemy, from ISIR/UPMC, who reorganized the code to take advantage of the early object-oriented features of matlab. It eventually became clear that the language was ill-designed, and that a full rewrite was necessary. With the help of Joseph Salini, also from ISIR/UPMC, Arboris-python was born. The resulting framework is now quite similar to what is presented in [Duindam2006].

The matlab version of the simulator is now deprecated.

[Murray1994]

Richard M. Murray, Zexiang Li and S. Shankar Sastry, “A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation”, CRC Press, 1994.

[Park2005]

Jonghoon Park, “Principle of Dynamical Balance for Multibody Systems”, Multibody System Dynamics, vol. 14, number 3-4, pp. 269-299, 2005.

[Liu2003]

T. Liu and M. Y. Wang, “Computation of three dimensional rigid body dynamics of multiple contacts using time-stepping and Gauss-Seidel method”, IEEE Transaction on Automation Science and Engineering, submitted, November 2003.

[Duindam2006]

V. Duindam, “Port-Based Modelling and Control for Efficent Bipedal Walking Robots”, University of Twente, 2006.

Project details


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