Linear-Time Contact and Friction Dynamics in Maximal Coordinates using Variational Integrators

Understand

Simulation of contact and friction dynamics is an important basis for control- and learning-based algorithms.

• However, the numerical difficulties of contact interactions pose a challenge for robust and efficient simulators.
• A maximal-coordinate representation of the dynamics enables efficient solving algorithms, but current methods in maximal coordinates require constraint stabilization schemes.
• Therefore, we propose an interior-point algorithm for the numerically robust treatment of rigid-body dynamics with contact interactions in maximal coordinates.