Related papers: Exponential Integration for Efficient and Accurate…
We want to enable fine manipulation with a multi-fingered robotic hand by using modern deep reinforcement learning methods. Key for fine manipulation is a spatially resolved tactile sensor. Here, we present a novel model of a tactile skin…
We present a novel convex formulation that weakly couples the Material Point Method (MPM) with rigid body dynamics through frictional contact, optimized for efficient GPU parallelization. Our approach features an asynchronous time-splitting…
This paper deals with the numerical integration of Hamiltonian systems in which a stiff anharmonic potential causes highly oscillatory solution behavior with solution-dependent frequencies. The impulse method, which uses micro- and…
Long-term non-prehensile planar manipulation is a challenging task for planning and control, requiring determination of both continuous and discrete contact configurations, such as contact points and modes. This leads to the non-convexity…
Use of explicit integration methods for power electronic circuits with ideal switch models significantly improves simulation speed. The PLECS package [1] has effectively used this idea; however, the implementation details involved in PLECS…
Modeling contact between deformable solids is a fundamental problem in computer animation, mechanical design, and robotics. Existing methods based on $C^0$-discretizations -- piece-wise linear or polynomial surfaces -- suffer from…
Design of robots at the small scale is a trial-and-error based process, which is costly and time-consuming. There are no good dynamic simulation tools to predict the motion or performance of a microrobot as it moves against a substrate. At…
Common methods for learning robot dynamics assume motion is continuous, causing unrealistic model predictions for systems undergoing discontinuous impact and stiction behavior. In this work, we resolve this conflict with a smooth, implicit…
Being able to reproduce physical phenomena ranging from light interaction to contact mechanics, simulators are becoming increasingly useful in more and more application domains where real-world interaction or labeled data are difficult to…
The contact of solids with rough surfaces plays a fundamental role in physical phenomena such as friction, wear, sealing, and thermal transfer. However, its simulation is a challenging problem due to surface asperities covering a wide range…
We change a previous time-stepping algorithm for solving a multi-scale Vlasov-Poisson system within a Particle-In-Cell method, in order to do accurate long time simulations. As an exponential integrator, the new scheme allows to use large…
Soft, slender structures are ubiquitous in natural and engineered systems, with broad application potential from biomimetic materials to soft robotics. However, there is a notable lack of computational tools that simultaneously preserve…
Soft robots are notoriously hard to control. This is partly due to the scarcity of models able to capture their complex continuum mechanics, resulting in a lack of control methodologies that take full advantage of body compliance. Currently…
Intrinsically elastic robots surpass their rigid counterparts in a range of different characteristics. By temporarily storing potential energy and subsequently converting it to kinetic energy, elastic robots are capable of highly dynamic…
Exponential integrators are a well-known class of time integration methods that have been the subject of many studies and developments in the past two decades. Surprisingly, there have been limited efforts to analyze their stability and…
Electro-thermally actuated origami provides a novel method for creating 3-D systems with advanced morphing and functional capabilities. However, it is currently difficult to simulate the multi-physical behavior of such systems because the…
To address the computational challenges of ab initio molecular dynamics and the accuracy limitations of empirical force fields, the introduction of machine learning force fields has proven effective in various systems including metals and…
Simulating rigid-body dynamics with contact in a fast, massively vectorizable, and smoothly differentiable manner is highly desirable in robotics. An important bottleneck faced by existing differentiable simulation frameworks is contact…
Robotic manipulation tasks such as object insertion typically involve interactions between object and environment, namely extrinsic contacts. Prior work on Neural Contact Fields (NCF) use intrinsic tactile sensing between gripper and object…
Rigid bodies, plastic impact, persistent contact, Coulomb friction, and massless limbs are ubiquitous simplifications introduced to reduce the complexity of mechanics models despite the obvious physical inaccuracies that each incurs…