Abstract
A realistic simulation environment is an essential
tool in every roboticist’s toolkit, with uses ranging from planning and control to training policies with reinforcement learning. Despite the centrality of simulation in modern robotics, little work has been done to compare the performance of robotics
simulators against real-world data, especially for scenarios
involving dynamic motions with high speed impact events.
Handling dynamic contact is the computational bottleneck
for most simulations, and thus the modeling and algorithmic
choices surrounding impacts and friction form the largest distinctions between popular tools. Here, we evaluate the ability of
several simulators to reproduce real-world trajectories involving
impacts. Using experimental data, we identify system-specific
contact parameters of popular simulators Drake, MuJoCo, and
Bullet, analyzing the effects of modeling choices around these
parameters. For the simple example of a cube tossed onto a
table, simulators capture inelastic impacts well while failing
to capture elastic impacts. For the higher-dimensional case of
a Cassie biped landing from a jump, the simulators capture
the bulk motion well but the accuracy is limited by numerous
model differences between the real robot and the simulators.
@article{Acosta2022,
title = {Validating Robotics Simulators on Real World Impacts},
author = {Acosta, Brian and Yang, William and Posa, Michael},
journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L)},
arxiv = {2110.00541},
year = {2022},
youtube = {Ao6xJt4TpgU},
url = {https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9772943},
volume = {7},
number = {3},
pages = {6471-6478},
doi = {10.1109/LRA.2022.3174367}
}