Advanced Robot Dynamics Online Textbook Aaron M. Johnson

Book Motivation

I developed and teach a graduate class called Robot Dynamics and Analysis. Unlike most other robot dynamics classes, this new class focused on contact, impacts, and how to handle changing contact conditions in simulation and optimization. However, while the first half used a standard textbook, I could not find any good educational resources that covered hybrid systems, changing contact conditions, and impacts at the level needed for this class. Instead, I used two of my own research papers and a collection of other sources. The problem with these resources are that: 1) research papers are not written like textbooks, and generally lack the detailed explanations and example problems necessary; and 2) they lack a coherent dialog and notation, as each was written by a different author with a different audience in mind.

To remedy these issues, I am writing a textbook to cover the topics listed below over the course of several years. This will allow for a cohesive treatment of contact and related topics in a form that will be more approachable for students, following research-based best practices for textbook design. The text will be based on my papers, class notes, and translation guides, which comments back from students indicated were more helpful than many of the assigned readings. The textbook will be available for free online, and I will solicit input from the community during its development to help ensure it is of use to a wider range of researchers

Table of Contents

• Part 1 Contact Modes
• Kinematic Constraints
• Contact Kinematics
• Self-manipulation Kinematics
• Friction
• Eliminating Constraints / Reduced Coordinates
• Part 2 Dynamics
• Block Matrix Solutions
• Massless Dynamics
• Self-manipulation Dynamics
• Impacts
• Complementarity
• Pseudo-impulse
• Part 3 Simulation
• Compliant Contact
• Constrained Dynamics
• Hybrid Systems Model
• Collision Detection
• Event Driven Simulation
• Timestepping
• Paradoxical Test Cases
• Part 4 Trajectory Optimization
• Smooth Systems
• Hybrid Systems
• Contact-Implicit Optimization
• Constraint Relaxation

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No CMMI-1943900. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.