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We believe that the future of robot motion planning will look very different than how it looks today: instead of complex collision avoidance trajectories with a brittle dependence on sensing and estimation of the environment, motion plans…
Current trends in the computer graphics community propose leveraging the massive parallel computational power of GPUs to accelerate physically based simulations. Collision detection and solving is a fundamental part of this process. It is…
Understanding the dynamics of two inertial bodies coupled via a friction interface is essential for a wide range of systems and motion control applications. Coupling terms within the dynamics of an inertial pair connected via a passive…
While many robotic tasks, like manipulation and locomotion, are fundamentally based in making and breaking contact with the environment, state-of-the-art control policies struggle to deal with the hybrid nature of multi-contact motion. Such…
In co-manipulative continuum robots (CCRs), multiple continuum arms cooperate by grasping a common flexible object, forming a closed-chain deformable mechanical system. The closed-chain coupling induces strong dynamic interactions and…
In recent years, soft robotics simulators have evolved to offer various functionalities, including the simulation of different material types (e.g., elastic, hyper-elastic) and actuation methods (e.g., pneumatic, cable-driven, servomotor).…
Autonomous contact-based micromanipulation is challenging because surface and interfacial interactions at the microscale are difficult to model accurately, limiting the use of conventional model-based control and sim-to-real learning. We…
We introduce Midas, a robotics simulation framework based on the Incremental Potential Contact (IPC) model. Our simulator guarantees intersection-free, stable, and accurate resolution of frictional contact. We demonstrate the efficacy of…
The simulation of multi-body systems with frictional contacts is a fundamental tool for many fields, such as robotics, computer graphics, and mechanics. Hard frictional contacts are particularly troublesome to simulate because they make the…
Ensuring safe physical interaction between torque-controlled manipulators and humans is essential for deploying robots in everyday environments. Model Predictive Control (MPC) has emerged as a suitable framework thanks to its capacity to…
This paper presents a contact-implicit model predictive control (MPC) framework for the real-time discovery of multi-contact motions, without predefined contact mode sequences or foothold positions. This approach utilizes the…
Soft robots were introduced in large part to enable safe, adaptive interaction with the environment, and this interaction relies fundamentally on contact. However, modeling and planning contact-rich interactions for soft robots remain…
Compliant motions allow alignment of workpieces using naturally occurring interaction forces. However, free-floating objects do not have a fixed base to absorb the reaction forces caused by the interactions. Consequently, if the interaction…
In this work we present an efficient implementation of Canonical Monte Carlo simulation for Coulomb many body systems on graphics processing units (GPU). Our method takes advantage of the GPU Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD)…
A primary bottleneck in contact-rich manipulation is the difficulty of collecting real-world data. Sim-to-real reinforcement learning offers a scalable alternative, but the simulation-reality gap prevents information-dense modalities like…
A novel multi-scale finite element formulation for contact mechanics between nominally smooth but microscopically rough surfaces is herein proposed. The approach integrates the interface finite element method (FEM) for modelling interface…
This paper addresses the problem of controlling a continuum manipulator (CM) in free or obstructed environments with no prior knowledge about the deformation behavior of the CM and the stiffness and geometry of the interacting obstructed…
In this paper, we propose an operator-inference-based reduction approach for contact problems, leveraging snapshots from simulations without active contact. Contact problems are solved using adjoint methods, by switching to the dual system,…
Differentiable simulation establishes the mathematical foundation for solving challenging inverse problems in computer graphics and robotics, such as physical system identification and inverse dynamics control. However, rigor in frictional…
Fast contact detection is crucial for safe human-robot collaboration. Observers based on proprioceptive information can be used for contact detection but have first-order error dynamics, which results in delays. Sensor fusion based on…