Adaptive dynamics with efficient contact handling for articulated robots

Abstract

We present a novel adaptive dynamics algorithm with efficient contact handling for articulated robots. Our algorithm automatically computes a fraction of the joints whose motion provides a good approximation to overall robot dynamics. We extend Featherstone's Divide-and-Conquer algorithm and are able to efficiently handle all contacts and collisions with the obstacles in the environment. Overall, our approach provides a time-critical collision detection and resolution algorithm for highly articulated bodies and its complexity is sub-linear in the number of degrees-of-freedom. We demonstrate our algorithm on several complex articulated robots consisting of hundreds of joints.