Simulation tools for model-based robotics: Comparison of Bullet, Havok, MuJoCo, ODE and PhysX

Erez, Tom; Tassa, Yuval; Todorov, Emanuel

doi:10.1109/icra.2015.7139807

Cited by 245 publications

(133 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…The developers of the MuJoCo engine performed a comparison study between Bullet, Havok, MuJoCo, ODE and PhysX [12]. These tests involve larger structures with many constrained bodies, which will not be the focus of this paper.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

RobWorkPhysicsEngine: A new dynamic simulation engine for manipulation actions

Thulesen

Petersen

2016

2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)

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Simulation in robotics is often based on physics engines developed for computer games and animation. These engines are inaccurate due to the applied first order numerical integration and because their ways to resolve redundant contacts lead to contact forces that are distributed in a physically unreasonable way among multiple contacts. In this paper, we present a new physics engine that resolves these flaws by designing and implementing a second order integration method, and by a new way of defining the contact-force resolution problem. We illustrate the improvement over state-of-the-art engines by a number of experiments. The new engine is proven to be particularly suitable for simulating tight fitting assembly operations where multiple contacts occur between the objects involved.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

RobWorkPhysicsEngine: A new dynamic simulation engine for manipulation actions

Thulesen

Petersen

2016

2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)

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“…To achieve this goal, we employed the NVIDIA PhysX engine, an impulse‐based physics engine, written in C++ language and designed for adding physics to video games; although PhysX runs on the CPU, it may take advantage of compatible GPU devices. This engine performed well and showed stability during robotic simulations when tested against other physics engines, and it has already been employed in the development of virtual surgery simulators …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Virtual reality simulation of robotic transsphenoidal brain tumor resection: Evaluating dynamic motion scaling in a master‐slave system

Heredia‐Pérez

Harada

Castañeda

et al. 2018

Robotics Computer Surgery

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“…Erez et al . compared the self‐consistency of Bullet, Havok, MuJoCo, ODE, and PhysX under identical simulation parameters in order to measure their integration error . They found MuJoCo performed best on robotics‐related tests, which it was designed for, while gaming engines won the gaming‐related tests without a clear leader among them.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We utilized a modified version of the physics simulation engine comparison framework used in the work of Erez et al . for our comparisons. We made extensions to the framework to be able to apply active external forces.…”

Section: Overview Of Physics Enginesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictable behavior during contact simulation: a comparison of selected physics engines

Chung

Pollard

2016

Computer Animation & Virtual

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Contact behaviors in physics simulations are important for real-time interactive applications, especially in virtual reality applications where user's body parts are tracked and interact with the environment via contact. For these contact simulations, it is ideal to have small changes in initial condition yield predictable changes in the output. Predictable simulation is key for success in iterative learning processes as well, such as learning controllers for manipulations or locomotion tasks. Here, we present an extensive comparison of contact simulations using Bullet Physics, Dynamic Animation and Robotics Toolkit (DART), MuJoCo, and Open Dynamics Engine, with a focus on predictability of behavior. We first tune each engine to match an analytical solution as closely as possible and then compare the results for a more complex simulation. We found that in the commonly available physics engines, small changes in initial condition can sometimes induce different sequences of contact events to occur and ultimately lead to a vastly different result. Our results confirmed that parameter settings do matter a great deal and suggest that there may be a trade-off between accuracy and predictability.

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Simulation tools for model-based robotics: Comparison of Bullet, Havok, MuJoCo, ODE and PhysX

Cited by 245 publications

References 13 publications

RobWorkPhysicsEngine: A new dynamic simulation engine for manipulation actions

RobWorkPhysicsEngine: A new dynamic simulation engine for manipulation actions

Virtual reality simulation of robotic transsphenoidal brain tumor resection: Evaluating dynamic motion scaling in a master‐slave system

Predictable behavior during contact simulation: a comparison of selected physics engines

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