A Force-Feedback Algorithm for Adaptive Articulated-Body Dynamics Simulation

This paper introduces a novel algorithm for haptic interaction with an adaptive simulation of articulated-body dynamics. Our algorithm has a multi-threaded structure, which allows us to separate the force feedback computation from the adaptive dynamics simulation. The algorithm we propose for force feedback computation has a logarithmic complexity in the number of degrees of freedom in the articulated body. We have implemented our approach and tested it on a 3.0GHz dual processor Xeon PC. The preliminary benchmarks presented here demonstrate that our multi-threaded approach, as well as the logarithmic complexity of the force feedback computation, allow us to interact in a stable way with large articulated bodies that have complex dynamics (such as articulated-body models of proteins). Whatever the update rate of the adaptive simulation loop, the force feedback computation is performed in a few tens of microseconds.