An efficient parallel dynamics algorithm for simulation of large articulated robotic systems

This paper presents a new parallel computer algorithm for the simulation of large articulated robotic systems. The method employs the Divide and Conquer Algorithm (DCA) multibody methodology and achieves significant increases in speed by using a variation of the Articulated Body Algorithm (ABA) to efficiently construct the DCA subsystems. The method outperforms contemporary parallel dynamics algorithms for a serial topology and degenerates to the ABA in the absence of parallel resources. The implementation and comparison with the ABA demonstrate useful speed increases with as few as two parallel processors and speed ups by a factor of 2.25 in the presence of four processors for serial manipulators. The paper also addresses the practical limitations on obtainable speedups due to the interprocessor communication costs and its consequences on choosing optimal DCA subsystems.