English

A Flexible MATLAB/Simulink Simulator for Robotic Floating-base Systems in Contact with the Ground: Theoretical background and Implementation Details

Robotics 2024-05-15 v1

Abstract

This paper presents an open-source MATLAB/Simulink physics simulator for rigid-body articulated systems, including manipulators and floating-base robots. Thanks to MATLAB/Simulink features like MATLAB system classes and Simulink function blocks, the presented simulator combines a programmatic and block-based approach, resulting in a flexible design in the sense that different parts, including its physics engine, robot-ground interaction model, and state evolution algorithm are simply accessible and editable. Moreover, through the use of Simulink dynamic mask blocks, the proposed simulator supports robot models integrating open-chain and closed-chain kinematics with any desired number of links interacting with the ground. This simulator can also integrate second-order actuator dynamics. Furthermore, the simulator benefits from a one-line installation and an easy-to-use Simulink interface.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2405.08092,
  title  = {A Flexible MATLAB/Simulink Simulator for Robotic Floating-base Systems in Contact with the Ground: Theoretical background and Implementation Details},
  author = {Nuno Guedelha and Venus Pasandi and Giuseppe L'Erario and Silvio Traversaro and Daniele Pucci},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.08092},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

17 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, equal contribution by authors Nuno Guedelha and Venus Pasandi. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2211.09716