Related papers: High Accuracy Numerical Optimal Control for Rigid …
In this paper, we develop a principled method to model line and surface contact with point contact (we call this point, equivalent contact point) that is consistent with physics-based models of surface (line) contact. Assuming that the set…
The implementation of optimization-based motion coordination approaches in real world multi-agent systems remains challenging due to their high computational complexity and potential deadlocks. This paper presents a distributed model…
We present a fast and feature-complete differentiable physics engine, Nimble (nimblephysics.org), that supports Lagrangian dynamics and hard contact constraints for articulated rigid body simulation. Our differentiable physics engine offers…
Collisions are common in many dynamical systems with real applications. They can be formulated as hybrid dynamical systems with discontinuities automatically triggered when states transverse certain manifolds. We present an algorithm for…
This study presents a whole-body model predictive control (MPC) of robotic systems with rigid contacts, under a given contact sequence using online switching time optimization (STO). We treat robot dynamics with rigid contacts as a switched…
Safety and automatic control are extremely important when operating manipulators. For large engineering manipulators, the main challenge is to accurately recognize the posture of all arm segments. In classical sensing methods, the accuracy…
We present a differentiable dynamics solver that is able to handle frictional contact for rigid and deformable objects within a unified framework. Through a principled mollification of normal and tangential contact forces, our method…
Dynamics simulation with frictional contacts is important for a wide range of applications, from cloth simulation to object manipulation. Recent methods using smoothed lagged friction forces have enabled robust and differentiable simulation…
The paper is devoted to the study of a new class of optimal control problems for nonsmooth dynamical systems governed by nonconvex discontinuous differential inclusions of the sweeping type with involving variable time into optimization. We…
We present an approach for the detection of sharp change points (short-lived and persistent) in nonlinear and nonstationary dynamic systems under high levels of noise by tracking the local phase and amplitude synchronization among the…
Differentiable physics is a powerful tool in computer vision and robotics for scene understanding and reasoning about interactions. Existing approaches have frequently been limited to objects with simple shape or shapes that are known in…
Semidefinite programming (SDP) is widely acknowledged as one of the most effective methods for deriving the tightest lower bounds of the optimal power flow (OPF) problems. In this paper, an enhanced semidefinite relaxation model that…
In this thesis, a non-penetrated and physically consistent non-smooth numerical approach has been proposed, by employing the Prox formulation and Moreau's mid-point time-stepping rule, for the contact dynamics with coupled and decoupled…
This paper introduces a novel variable stiffness mechanism termed Helically Wound Structured Electrostatic Layer Jamming (HWS-ELJ) and systematically investigates its potential applications in variable stiffness robotic finger design. The…
This paper proposes an approach, Spectral Dynamics Embedding Control (SDEC), to optimal control for nonlinear stochastic systems. This method reveals an infinite-dimensional feature representation induced by the system's nonlinear…
Introducing a reduced particle stiffness in discrete element method (DEM) allows for bigger time steps and therefore fewer total iterations in a simulation. Although this approach works well for dry non-adhesive particles, it has been shown…
Collision detection and collision avoidance are essential components in these systems for safe human-robot interactions. Robotics systems that can work "out-of-the-box" without excessive amount of installation and calibration from the…
In this paper, we propose ContactSDF, a method that uses signed distance functions (SDFs) to approximate multi-contact models, including both collision detection and time-stepping routines. ContactSDF first establishes an SDF using the…
Robotic manipulation and locomotion often entail nearly-simultaneous collisions -- such as heel and toe strikes during a foot step -- with outcomes that are extremely sensitive to the order in which impacts occur. Robotic simulators…
This paper presents a novel control protocol for robust distance-based formation control with prescribed performance in which agents are subjected to unknown external disturbances. Connectivity maintenance and collision avoidance among…