Dynamic Simulation of Interactive Robotic Environment

A dynamic simulation package, which can accurately model the interactions between robots and their environment, has been developed. This package creates a virtual environment where various controllers and workcells may be tested. The simulator is divided in two parts: local objects that compute their own d y namic equations of motion, and a global coordinator that resolves interactive forces between objects. This simulator builds upon previous work on dynamic simulation of simple rigid bodies and extends it to correctly model and efficiently compute the dynamics of multi-link robots.