Toward physics-based virtual reality testbeds for intelligent robot manipulators - an eRobotics approach

摘要

The increasingly pervasive usage of robotic automation not only calls for a high performance of physical robot manipulators, but also implies challenging requirements on 3D robot simulators. A skillful reaction of simulated robots to unpredicted contact forces has become an especially stringent necessity to support the development of emerging applications for which a compliant robotic manipulation is indispensable. This paper focuses on the simulation of physics-based virtual testbeds in which simulated robots are made capable of accommodating external forces exerted by the environment on their manipulators. For this, we integrate methods from multi-body dynamics modeling, advanced robotics, and virtual reality to develop a robotics simulation basis that facilitates the employment of compliant robotic manipulations in simulated applications. The validation of this basis in joint space indicates that a physics-based simulation of robots endowed with active physical interaction control can capture and reflect significant effects which characterize the interactive behavior of physical compliant robots.We demonstrate the practical utility of our approach to unlock competitive advantages in fully simulated applications prone to position uncertainty. Furthermore, we show the potential of using compliant digital twins of physical robots to introduce compliant robotic manipulations into real applications.