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Robotics Research pp 357–373Cite as

Robust Contact Generation for Robot Simulation with Unstructured Meshes

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Part of the book series: Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics ((STAR,volume 114))

Abstract

This paper presents a numerically stable method for rigid body simulation of unstructured meshes undergoing forceful contact, such as in robot locomotion and manipulation. The key contribution is a new contact generation method that treats the geometry as having a thin virtual boundary layer around the underlying meshes. Unlike existing methods, it produces contact estimates that are stable with respect to small displacements, which helps avoid jitter or divergence in the simulator caused by oscillatory discontinuities. Its advantages are particularly apparent on non-watertight meshes and can easily simulate interaction with partially-sensed and noisy objects, such as those that emerge from low-cost 3D scanners. The simulator is tested on a variety of robot locomotion and manipulation examples, and results closely match theoretical predictions and experimental data.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ODE provides an option to disable simulation of rigid bodies that are not moving, which improves the stability of stacks. Such functionality was not used in these tests.

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Acknowledgments

The author thanks Anna Eilering for capturing the Kinect meshes and H. Andy Park for testing the Hubo robot’s force sensors. This work is partially supported by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) award # N65236-12-1-1005 for the DARPA Robotics Challenge. Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of DARPA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Kris Hauser

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  1. Kris Hauser
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Correspondence to Kris Hauser .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Creative Informatics, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Masayuki Inaba

  2. School of Electrical Engineering and Com, Queensland Univ of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Peter Corke

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Hauser, K. (2016). Robust Contact Generation for Robot Simulation with Unstructured Meshes. In: Inaba, M., Corke, P. (eds) Robotics Research. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, vol 114. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28872-7_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28872-7_21

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28870-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28872-7

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