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Simulating physical systems is a core component of scientific computing, encompassing a wide range of physical domains and applications. Recently, there has been a surge in data-driven methods to complement traditional numerical simulations…
In this paper, we analyze the effects of contact models on contact-implicit trajectory optimization for manipulation. We consider three different approaches: (1) a contact model that is based on complementarity constraints, (2) a smooth…
It is well-known that inverse dynamics models can improve tracking performance in robot control. These models need to precisely capture the robot dynamics, which consist of well-understood components, e.g., rigid body dynamics, and effects…
The complex ways in which humans utilize their bodies in sports and martial arts are remarkable, and human motion analysis is one of the most effective tools for robot body design and control. On the other hand, motion analysis is not easy,…
Many industries extensively use flexible materials. Effective approaches for handling flexible objects with a robot manipulator must address residual vibrations. Existing solutions rely on complex models, use additional instrumentation for…
Contact-rich manipulation tasks with stiff frictional elements like connector insertion are difficult to model with rigid-body simulators. In this work, we propose a new approach for modeling these environments by learning a quasi-static…
An improved formulation of the Smoothed Profile method is introduced to perform direct numerical simulations of arbitrary rigid body dispersions in a Newtonian host solvent. Previous implementations of the method were restricted to…
Haptic feedback to the surgeon during robotic surgery would enable safer and more immersive surgeries but estimating tissue interaction forces at the tips of robotically controlled surgical instruments has proven challenging. Few existing…
Design of robots at the small scale is a trial-and-error based process, which is costly and time-consuming. There are few dynamic simulation tools available to accurately predict the motion or performance of untethered microrobots as they…
Series Elastic Actuators provide many benefits in force control of robots in unconstrained environments. These benefits include high force fidelity, extremely low impedance, low friction, and good force control bandwidth. Series Elastic…
Even though artificial muscles have gained popularity due to their compliant, flexible, and compact properties, there currently does not exist an easy way of making informed decisions on the appropriate actuation strategy when designing a…
Multisection continuum arms offer complementary characteristics to those of traditional rigid-bodied robots. Inspired by biological appendages, such as elephant trunks and octopus arms, these robots trade rigidity for compliance, accuracy…
Real-time simulation enables the understanding of system operating conditions by evaluating simulation models of physical components running synchronized at the real-time wall clock. Leveraging the real-time measurements of comprehensive…
Reinforcement learning often requires extensive training data. Simulation-to-real transfer offers a promising approach to address this challenge in robotics. While differentiable simulators offer improved sample efficiency through exact…
With soft robotics being increasingly employed in settings demanding high and controlled contact forces, recent research has demonstrated the use of soft robots to estimate or intrinsically sense forces without requiring external sensing…
Physical interactive robotics, ranging from wearable devices to collaborative humanoid robots, require close coordination between mechanical design and control. However, evaluating interactive dynamics is challenging due to complex human…
Developing control policies in simulation is often more practical and safer than directly running experiments in the real world. This applies to policies obtained from planning and optimization, and even more so to policies obtained from…
Robot learning requires a considerable amount of high-quality data to realize the promise of generalization. However, large data sets are costly to collect in the real world. Physics simulators can cheaply generate vast data sets with broad…
Accelerated molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are implemented to model the sliding process of AFM experiments at speeds close to those found in experiment. In this study the hyperdynamics method, originally devised to extend MD time…
This paper evaluates state-of-the-art contact models at predicting the motions and forces involved in simple in-hand robotic manipulations. In particular it focuses on three primitive actions --linear sliding, pivoting, and rolling-- that…